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Everyone Is Raving About The Last Airbender

07/01/2010 By

Critics have had the opportunity to watch M. Night Shyamalan’s opus of opusness The Last Airbender. I think they loved it.

last airbender aang1 Everyone Is Raving About The Last Airbender

Check out Roger Ebert’s glowing praise:

“The Last Airbender” is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented. The laws of chance suggest that something should have gone right. Not here. It puts a nail in the coffin of low-rent 3D, but it will need a lot more coffins than that.

Did you read that? More coffins! I think this bodes well for a sequel. Ebert gives The Last Airbender a full 1/2 stars out of four, which is the “secretly a masterpiece” rating that only Ebert’s truest fans know about. Because it kind of looks like a winking eye. Get it? Shhhh!

Or try on Charlie Jane Anders’ paean to Shyamalan’s mastery from her io9.com review:

In the middle of a summer of proctologically un-thought-out action movies, The Last Airbender breezes past self-parody into a full-on comedy assault that will have you hearing Shyamalan’s mocking laughter in your sleep.

last airbender noah ringer aang e12780046847741 Everyone Is Raving About The Last AirbenderAnd Keith Phipps of the Onion AV Club implicitly likens the film to a black hole, which as you know is one of the most impressive and mysterious bodies in the universe:

The Last Airbender isn’t that much different from the rest of this summer’s generally dire multiplex fare—from The A-Team to Jonah Hex—which started with established properties and half-decent ideas, then cranked up the volume, velocity, and effects to the point where neither sense nor tender moments could escape. But it is remarkable in one respect: It’s the worst of them.

If I may be serious for a moment: is it too much to ask that no one give M. Night Shyamalan any movie deal ever again? He should driven into the hills with fire and pointed sticks, there to live out his days until some teen campers with a Flip camera discover his hillbilly murder shed.

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Filed Under: Best Of MamaPop, Comedy, Movies, Things That Suck, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things Tagged With: Film, Movies
About Palinode

The Palinode, aka Aidan Morgan, is a freelance writer and communications fellow. Slowly but surely, he amasses a towering pile of text behind him as he goes.

  • Rhonda

    Ha-ha. My husband promised to take the kids to see this. He’s a sucker.

  • http://www.sweetney.com Sweetney

    UGH. I loved — and my daughter LOVES — this show, and were so SO bummed out when it ended. If M. Night really and truly destroyed what the series did in this movie I will seriously never forgive him. GAH.

  • Tiffany

    Lord help me. I promised the boyfriend I’d go see this with him.

  • http://themadamequeen.blogspot.com Leandra

    This is so sad because my son — and consequently *I* — have just disovered this show on tv and it is awesome. They probably could have made a really cool animated version for a lot less money and not destroyed the fans hopes and dreams in the process.

  • http://cabadov.wordpress.com carrie anne

    I’m with Sweetney and Leandra, we, myself included, love the original cartoon series. I will be so disappointed if the movie doesn’t live up. I have to wonder if any of the reviewers quoted have seen the original series or if their reviews are based on comparing it to standard sci-fi fantasy films. The series, though I love it, can come across as a little hoaky, but hey I loved Sailor Moon too.

  • http://www.thepalinode.com Palinode

    @carrie anne – You don’t have to wonder whether the reviewers are familiar with the original series – you can click on the links and get more context. Ebert is definitely familiar with the series, Phipps discusses it (although not in great detail) and it’s a safe bet that anyone who writes for io9.com is a fan of the cartoon. If you search around for reviews from people who are first and foremost fans of the original, you will discover a hatred that burns so hot your flesh feels seared afterward (Aint It Cool News is a good place to start).

    I have a thing for Sailor Moon too – I always figured that Tuxedo Mask would be an easy Halloween costume.

  • DianaCLT

    I read a lengthy article that Ebert had linked to, also slamming this movie. This article focused, however, on how the movie basically throws us back to the days of using blackface/yellowface/redface, etc., instead of using quality actors of appropriate ethnic backgrounds. In “The Last Airbender,” all of the good guys are white. The bad guy is of Indian (India, not Native American) descent. Translation? The darker the skin, the badder the character.

    Ugh.

    I’m kind-of glad that my son lost interest in the series, even though I, too, enjoyed it. It is nice that there’s a cool cartoon series out there with characters of Asian background…like my kids (Well…parts of them, anyway). :) Because he’s lost interest in the series, he has no desire to see the movie – saving me from lots of my own ranting about bullshit Hollywood games and casting.

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  • http://www.thepalinode.com Palinode

    @DianaCLT – It’s well-known that white people make great Asians, Inuit, etc. They also make excellent good guys (although albinos are usually evil). White guys at one point made pretty good North American Indians, although that post is often taken by Hawaiians these days. And the days when white guys made great black guys appear to be long behind us. Given the recent response to the possibility of an African-American Spiderman, though, it seems that black guys do not yet make good white guys.

    What surprised me about the Airbender casting is that Paramount didn’t opt to hire a young well-known Asian actor in the lead role, since you’d think that would provide some box office draw in Asian countries. What were they worried about? That a Mandarin-speaking actor might have trouble delivering the hollow boring dialogue of the film in the same flat-affect monotone that Noah Ringer uses? I have considerable faith in M. Night Shyamalan’s power to suck a shitty performance out of any actor, regardless of their background.

  • Jen O.

    M. is NOT invited to live in my Murder Shed.

  • http://www.thepalinode.com Palinode

    @Jen O. – I just put that in to see if you were paying attention.

  • Rhonda

    Well my teen just got up at the crack of one. He saw it last night at midnight. He loved the show. He said the movie sucked. Sucked hard. He thought Transformers was a work of art so if he says it sucks then I can only imagine.

    He also said that his friend ‘didn’t even clap at the end’, and his friend always claps at the end of movies. He even clapped at the end of The Notebook. And I’m all: ‘for reals?’ and he’s all ‘for real’. And THAT my friends brought that conversation up a notch in the ‘what the fuckery’ department.

    Hubs still has to take our two little kids. Heh.

  • http://www.thepalinode.com Palinode

    @Rhonda – Someone clapped at the end of The Notebook?

  • http://www.sweetney.com Sweetney

    @Rhonda I wish you had video of that clapping at the end of the Notebook. COMEDY GOLD. :)

  • Rhonda

    For reals. And he was a pre-teen boy. And I love him and want to put him in my pocket. But not in a pervy way.

  • Holly

    ugh. this makes me so sad. although we will still see it next week. we’re all big fans of the series and my son has been looking forward to it for a year. there’s no way i could tell him that we’re not going.

  • Larry

    Eclipse is no better but it gets excused for it’s horrible acting and bad script. Not to mention the horrid wigs. I wonder how many of the people that write these bad reviews for Last Airbender are in Summit Entertainment pocket.

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    Chinese kung fu? that was great, i like kung fu so much, also love chinese culture.

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