I’ve been saying for years that M. Night Shyamalan, who over the course of a decade went from being the next Hitchcock to a latter-day Ed Wood, should tackle material not born from his own twilight-zone of a mind. I’ve envisioned the gifted, Philly-raised auteur applying his irrefutable stylistic skills to a story uncontaminated by outlandish, swollen-headed, Shyamalanian DNA. Finally given the opportunity, Shyamalan couldn’t have botched things up more enormously than he does with “The Last Airbender,” his galumphing, dumbfoundingly preposterous adaptation of the popular Nickelodeon anime series.
What is an Airbender? Oh, who cares? Shyamalan, in a script overflowing with convolution, takes great pains to explain it, pummeling viewers with enough loony expository speeches to send them hurtling toward the exits. Borderline sadistic in his technique, the filmmaker rubs your face in the movie’s innumerable absurdities, zooming in obnoxiously close on the face of Aang (Noah Ringer), the all-powerful Avatar (not that one), as he raves about Dragon Spirits, Air Nomads, Flying Lemur Bats and The Fire Nation with bug-eyed, double-glazed hamminess.
Apart from the best efforts of a few talented stars of Indian descent (including Dev Patel of “Slumdog Millionaire”), the acting is god-awful. Playing the cheese to Ringer’s ham is 15-year-old Nicola Peltz, who, poor thing, drives you into a state of secondhand embarrassment with her dreadfully misguided performance as the water-bending Katara. Jackson Rathbone of “Twilight” fame is barely better as Katara’s big bro, Sokka. The young actors speak as if they just finished Level 1 of Rosetta Stone English, and then attempt to wrap their monosyllabic tongues around a bunch of fantastical, nonsensical hooey.
Even the potentially grand visuals are compromised, as this flick is another casualty of the 3-D-retrofit disease, wherein the third dimension is added after the fact. Exotic eye candy and nifty water effects are left looking murky, and there’s no noticeable visual enhancement beyond some puffed-up subtitles. In every sense, “Airbender” is a bust. It’s Shyamalan’s worst film since ... well, since his last one.
The Last Airbender
PG
One reel out of four
Now playing in area theaters
A Single Man
R
Now available
Colin Firth gives the performance of his career in “A Single Man,” a tragic, stylish drama that marks the directorial debut of fashion designer Tom Ford.
Playing a professor bent on suicide following the death of his lover, Firth is matched by the great Julianne Moore who plays his character’s longtime best friend.
The greatest sin every bad movie commits is disregarding the better judgment of its audience. The modern masses may be all-too-willing to shell out oodles of dough for mediocrity, even garbage, but that’s no reason not to wag a finger at those who make said garbage, then dare to ask for payment in return, thus continuing the vicious, subpar-cinema cycle.
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