Saturday, July 10, 2010

The Last Airbender AKA Ahhhvatar (0/5)


Let me start this off with a disclaimer, just because the first 2 reviews/posts on my newly revamped site are zero's doesn't mean my site is just going to be me hating everything, its just not my fault that world keeps making me hate things.

The Last Airbender, is the live action movie of Avatar:The Last Airbender, the movie name dropped the Avatar most likely because of James Cameron's eyegasm Avatar:The Last Blue People. This is M. Night Shamalayan's (Sp?) first foray (that I care about) into something he didn't completely come up with on his own. Avatar:The Last Airbender is an acclaimed animated show that aired three seasons, or books, on Nickelodeon. The movie had a great source material, a great budget, and supposedly one of Hollywood's best writer/directors. What could go wrong? Well a whole fucking lot. Ever heard the expression the shit hit the fan? TLA (The Last Airbender if you can't understand basic acronyms and if you are reading this you probably can't....idiot) is as if the shit hit one of those fan blades that are on a jet, except it wasn't regular shit, it was like a shit nuclear bomb that's how bad this movie was.

Cinematography: I'm not sure what M Night Shamalamadingdong (Sp?) was going for with the camera direction here, you may say to yourself, but James you handsome adonis how can we blame the dumbass director for the cinematography? Surely it must of been someone else's job. Well no, the director of cinmetography only worked post production...so the fault on the camera operation goes back to the dumbass Director. The Cinematography in this movie was like they took the cameraman, blindfolded him, rehearsed the scenes, then took the blindfold off and did one take. That would also explain the acting but more on that later. As much as I can rant and rave about angles and things of that nature the only way to truly get across how bad this was is to provide examples. First and foremost, there is a scene wherein all dialogue, music and plot advancement stop, the camera zooms in and out of a characters eye, and the movie continues. My entire theater did a big WTF at this, it didn't do it on a cliffhanger it didn't do it on a plot revelation, it just did it, randomly. Another gem is this thing the camera does where it's constantly rotating around...and around....and around...and around. Even if nothings really happening.

Wardrobe: This is the only part of the movie that has some redeeming qualities, but there's a reason this redeeming quality doesn't grant this movie any points, its because while the costumes were good, what happened to them, with them, and the way they were used, was idiotic. The costumes themselves were beautiful and quite amazing, although they lost some of their coolness factor when we saw everyone waddle around in them. It's like that cool haloween costume that looks TOTALLY FUCKING AWESOME but cuts of circulation to your genitals is extra snug. It's a wonder the fire nation did any conquering when it looks like their costumes prevent them from moving any faster then a light jog. Last thing that I thought was bizzare about wardrobe is that Aang gets a robe, and starts walking around like a Jedi, hood up everywhere in fact a Jedi is too good for this movie, he walks around like a 5 year old afraid of the outside world and constantly hiding behind his blankey.

Music: I don't get what the music man on this movie did, its like he found one really sad song, and played it.........ALL THE TIME. Even in the parts that were happy, Aang gets new friends? Sad song Katara learns to waterbend? Sad song. Sokka gets kissed? Sad song. It doesn't make a bit of goddamn sense. The score is uninspired, misused, bland, and downright silly, they should have just used the music from the show and they would have gotten better results infact they should just dub the movie with the shows voice actors.

Acting:This has been extremely controversial some blame the kids for the acting being downright whale poo-poo some blame M Nighty Nighty Shamwow (sp?). I personally blame the dumbass director. The level of acting necessary to pull off their respective characters isn't exactly staggering. Especially because all they had to do was carbon copy their roles in the series to gain instant success. The only redeeming quality about the acting was Iroh played by Shaun Toub, I felt like he was the only who had actually watched, enjoyed, or atleast studied the show before making a fucking movie of it. Controversially M Night Shamwoohoo (sp?) decided to change every single pronunciation to make it "sound more like their Asian roots" he then proceeded to cast white actors and wait wah? Yup he changed the tried and true pronunciation of the names to sound more Asian for the character he cast as white people. This brings me back to Shaun, Shaun actually asked the Dumbass why they weren't pronouncing them correctly, M N Shamafuckingstupidname (Sp?) had no idea.

Directing: I've made my opinion perfectly clear, MnM'Shaylan (Sp?) made a movie about a highly successful series with either the intent to kill it, or to prove just how bad of a director he could be. If you are handed a property like Avatar:The Last Airbender its practically a godsend, it already has a plot, an established fanbase, casting, locations, wardrobes, and dialogue all done. All you have to do is condense it into movie form. M Night ShamalamaIeatbabies (sp?) decided to redo all of that...but worse...for no reason....bottom line he did impossible, not make money off of something guaranteed to make money. It's like making harry potter movies that are so bad that people actually stop reading all together and let me steal their money clog our public school system.

Summary: TLA is about as fun as having a route canal while a bear does a jig on your chest. It doesn't feel like the movie knew what fanbase it wanted. It had enough references and scenes stolen straight from the movie to please existing fans. And yet it changed things that could have no other foreseeable outcome except to anger fans. Ahhng or Euro anyone? However at the same time, all these references and time spent on fan service instead of making a comprehensible plot makes the movie confusing, frustrating, and crappy for anyone not familiar with the series.The last thing I want to touch on is the effects, the effects are allegedly good, but lazily done, it feels like if the actors gave the special effects guy 10 seconds of "bending time" (time where they will do tai chi to make it look like they are manipulating elements) he will only use 5. This means that there is 5 seconds of random dancing before anything cool happens. It also makes bending pretty weak, lame, and all around a total failure in the face of like a knife or maybe a large rock. TLA was such a frustrating experience that it's the only midnight showing I have ever been to, where not only was it booed at the end, but the entire theater was constantly shouting at the screen.

For being so bad it made Step up 2 look good I give The Last Airbender ZERO out of FIVE totem poles (I'm a shaman I use fucking totem poles leave me alone read the damn name of the site)

0/5

If you are still interested in the premise I suggest the original series
                                   

3 comments:

  1. I hope he dies in an accident before he make the next installment.

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  2. Captures the essence of the "movie" exactly! *Applauds*

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  3. Omg amazing I give this review five dead Shamalayns(btw it said that shamalayn was a typo and the suggestions were shaman, shamanism shamanistic, etc.. etc..) Wait did I say dead Shamalayns, urr I mean 0 happy smiley faces yeah that's right

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