"The Last Airbender" Movie Review

“The Last Airbender, Movie?”

This movie is based off of the popular hit cartoon show "Avatar: The Last Airbender" by Michael Dante DiMartino and Brian Konietzko. With the recent release of James's Cameron's Avatar, you can see why the film is called "The Last Airbender." The show is actually not bad. I was 23 years old when I first started watching it. It had action, comedy, and a good story to it. A young boy, who is destine to save the world by mastering the four elements air, water, earth, and fire bending. The show was a huge hit, but will its first movie also have the same success? After leaving the theater, I was disappointed at what I saw. Whether you are a fan or not, you will not like what you see.

For those who have seen the show may be a little disappointed to the fact that a lot of scenes are cut from the show. Than again all of the episodes combine would have been up to five hours, which explains why a lot had to be cut. That’s where the movie goes downhill. The story moves too fast and we don’t even have enough time to build up any relationships with the characters. The characters, Sokka and the princess of the Northern Water Kingdom, fall in love in just a few minutes, whereas in the show there are about few episodes that build up their relationship. The special effects with the air, water, earth, and fire bending are pretty impressive. All of the elements look pretty real when presented.

The characters are nowhere near the characters that fans of the series grew to love. First of all, Sokka is always cracking a joke in almost every scene and a little serious at the certain points. In the movie Sokka is the opposite. There are only a few moments where he is joking around, but more serious. In the show Aang’s character is a kid who performs his airbending skills in a playful way. He does realize his destiny, but he still remains playful, which makes him such a fun hero. In the movie he takes things a little too serious and not showing a lot of his playfulness, which loses the fun.

The action is pretty good and well done. Dev Patel (Zuko) is actually a experienced martial artist back in 2000 in Taekwondo. Noah Ringer (Aang) is also an experienced martial artist in Taekwondo as well, so both make perfect pair when it comes to fighting. I like martial arts films where the actors are actually martial artists because it adds more realism whereas non-experienced fighters break out of the realism, so I totally like M. Night's decision of bringing these two boys aboard.

All and all the movie is fun for the kids. The special effects do impress, but in the end the movie fails due to poor character adaptations from the show and story wise. Don't get me wrong, I did think it was fun too. It is something that the kids will definitely enjoy. A lot of the kids in the audience were satisfied with the film while most of the adults and teens were confused. The story from the first season is cram together into one and a half hours which speeds things too fast for audiences to follow. Many fans will be disappointed that most of the scenes that they enjoyed from the show will not be in the film. Of course that doesn't mean you should watch the show if you haven't seen it. I do wish to see how the next film will portray the second season where Aang learns how to Earth bend. Unfortunately, the way that this one turned out I don’t expect a sequel to be coming out anytime soon. In fact there are no plans for the next film according to IMDB.COM. This may indeed be the "last" time we see the last airbender.