Date Watched: 07/07/10
Original Ranking: #24 out of 29
Amy says:
The Last Airbender could have been a great movie. It has an interesting plot, beautiful scenery, and some great Tai Chi moves. However, the acting just doesn’t work. One example is Jackson Rathbone, who plays Sokka in the film, kept making exaggerated facial expressions that are really distracting; it is like he is overacting with his face. Now, having just seen Rathborne play Jasper in Eclipse, I know this guy isn’t just a bad actor, so I am assuming he was instructed to overdo it by the director. I can only speculate the movie makers were trying to “dumb down” Airbender for kids. But kids don’t need dumbed down movies!
Nic says:
Unfortunately, The Last Airbender only works if it is allowed to be completed as the trilogy it is intended to be. On its own, this movie does not stand a chance. In addition to the already mentioned poor acting, and the story not being finished, the movie’s greatest shortcoming is its attempt to pull at emotions that we, as viewers, cannot empathize with due to a failure to draw us in. The movie wants us to feel sad that the avatar’s clan has all been killed, and sympathetic to the Fire Nation prince who is outcast by his father, however, neither of these plots are developed enough for us to truly care about. The movie seems to provide us only short glimpses into these pasts in exchange for more (tiresome) battle scenes.
The one aspect of the movie that I do like is that it makes spirituality, chi, and energy cool for kids. The battles (however boring to watch) consist mostly of tai chi moves, instead of hand-to-hand combat. The best display of this comes when a band of 5 or 6 Earthbenders conduct a series of synchronized moves that almost appear as though they are dancing.
Even though this movie was not terrific, I would still like to see the trilogy complete, if only to see how the story ends.
No comments:
Post a Comment