The 9 Most Scathing Critical Responses to The Last Airbender
Poor Manoj. The guy literally never saw the Shyamalashing coming from critics of his new, instantly notorious The Last Airbender, and I don't know if even his fiercest detractors ever envisioned him striking rock bottom quite as violently he has with this one. I mean, it's bad, folks. But don't take my word for it (or Kyle's, or Stephanie's for that matter). Read on for a flight of bile that makes our earlier Grown Ups and Sex and the City 2 hate-tastings sweet by comparison.
9. "There's a moment in The Last Airbender when Princess Yue pleads 'mmy people are dying, Sokka' and I instantly flashed on 'our people are dying, Senator,' Padme Amidala's very similar line from The Phantom Menace. In the halls of colossal nerd culture disappointments, I place these two films side-by-side. While the special effects and James Newton Howard's score in Airbender are quite good, I'm not sure Airbender has a podrace or Darth Maul double-sided lightsaber to argue for its side. I believe M. Night can ruin the world. -- Jordan Hoffman, UGO
8. "A film's [Rotten Tomatoes] ratings can be mixed/so-so (60% to 75%), mixed shit (40% to 60%), shit (20% to 40%) and steaming piles (under 20%). At least 11 other major releases this year have been generally condemned as time-wasters, but Airbender, so far, is the King of Shit Mountain." -- Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere
7. "If any movie ever warranted a class-action lawsuit against the filmmakers, it's The Last Airbender. Not because it's a terrible movie -- though it is -- but because its release as a 3D film becomes false advertising a few seconds after a comin'-atcha gush of water appears behind the Paramount logo. From there, it becomes painfully obvious --even more painfully obvious than in Alice In Wonderland -- that a few 3-D elements have been added to satisfy the current 3-D craze, and the higher ticket prices they allow. Worse still, the process makes the already-dark imagery darker, and turns the action blurry. Viewers who see it in this form will pay more for an even shittier experience than the one they would have had in 2D." -- Keith Phipps, The AV Club
6. "[A]fter his last two debacles, Lady in the Water and The Happening, you would think he'd can the hocus-pocus and settle into something a bit more, well, lucid. The Last Airbender is like a Care Bears movie that got waylaid in the fourth dimension." -- Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor
5. "In the past eight years [... Shyamalan's] oeuvre has gone from bad (The Village) to worse (Lady in the Water) to worst (The Happening). Purists might argue that his last film was less dreadful than his penultimate one, but the hallmarks were the same: stilted language, robotized acting, glacial pace, ponderous style, dramatic ineptitude and negligible energy. I never meant to make this review an exercise in career assassination, but I can't help thinking of all the lavishly talented filmmakers who have earned and never gotten a shot at big-budget success. What's the secret of this guy's failure?" -- Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal
4. "The current national priorities should be as follows: reduce carbon emissions and stop funding the films of M. Night Shyamalan." -- Cliff Doerksen, Chicago Reader
*3.** After spending the past decade making bad movies, writer-director M. Night Shyamalan has branched out in The Last Airbender. He has made a really bad movie. [...] To be specific, he has made a dull, boring, poorly acted, limply written and thoroughly unappealing fantasy, featuring bland characters locked in a struggle of no interest. Eleven years ago, Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense looked like the beginning of a brilliant career. Today it looks like a fantastic anomaly, like a flowerbed in an arid wasteland or some eighth wonder of the world. -- Mick LaSalle, SF Chronicle
2. "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. [...] Not only is it unexploited, unnecessary and hardly noticeable, but it's a disaster even if you like 3D. M. Night Shyamalan's retrofit produces the drabbest, darkest, dingiest movie of any sort I've seen in years." -- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
1. "I'm going to speak plainly in a language everyone can understand. M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender is a hate crime against film lovers. No one should ever have to endure what I was unexpectedly put through yesterday afternoon watching this murky 3D shitstorm of a movie that appears to have been shot through unflushed toilet bowl water, which, upon reflection, seems 100 percent appropriate. [...] As a critic, I always try to find one or two positive things to write about every film, even for the most trying movies I see in a given year. But for The Last Airbender, I got nothing." -- Capone, Ain't it Cool News
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Interesting point. This new film Essential killing is out. Vincent Gallo is playing an Afghan - hmm funny I don't see anyone jumping up and down to protest about that "horrible injustice". This whole racism charge against Shyamalan does seem to have been a plan to bring him down.
That truly is a very sad state of affairs.
Dude, Akira Kurosawa is dead. If he's still making movies then we have much more serious problem on our hands. Zombie film directors.
That 'white guy' is actually Tahmoh Penikett and he's First Nation.
Ah but you see, they tried that before, with the rumor that Will Smith was going to play Captain America and the internet errupted into a flame war.
But this does bring up a larger point when casting, which is more important? Casting the actor who most looks like a 2D illustration or casting the better actor who has a different skin color?
frankly critics and avid movie going fans don't go to the movie to figure the race of the director. All those who watched this movie did it for the race?? no dumbwits they wanted to c the adaptation so guys stop low balling here.there are more brown ppl in the earth kingdom why the hell didnt shyamalaladingdong cast the earth boyz as brown?
The movie sucked and yes am indian, caucasian and asian (ne more) so boohoo for mr sham-e-titus take a leaf out of peter jackson's adaptation.NUFF SED
The Last Airbender is a delight. I have had enough of the hating and self glorifying at the expense of this film, and Mr. Shyamalan! This is an beautiful film Mr.Shyamalan. Film critics once were guides, now they have chosen to make themselves the focal point of their film going experience, projecting their own troubling agendas onto unsuspecting films. and have lost site of their objective, which in my judgment is to review the film, not to spew hate!
it was a shit movie though in every way. Everything was bad and the animation series was much better
Pot calling the kettle black. This situation needs to be difussed not erupt in a flame war.
Airbender is no worse than Inception.
Playing the race card is stupid, as M. made it more diverse rather than just making it an Asian film, which really is more racist.
Inception was good, rated in the top 100 movies mate. You're probably just too ignorant and small minded to understand such a concept.
Actually no he made everyone bit the bad guys white. I'm not saying that he racist but differentl. Not diverse
that's probably the funniest thing i've read in a while.
Spike Lee complained that tarantino wrote a script where Samuel L Jackson used the word "nigger". So who is the racist?.
I liked M.Night at the beginning of his career, and I stood up for him when he made "Lady in the Water" and "The Happening." I was super excited for the Airbender movie but was highly highly disappointed. I loved the animated avatar series, and I was hoping to watch a great live action movie based on the series. Instead of a movie, I got a live action preview of the highlights in the series. If I wanted to watch highlights I would have looked it up on youtube, not payed $11 to watch it in so called 3D film. UGH!
This is just YET another instance of a first notch story and special effects crew being used(wrecked) to try and salvage the poor "performances" of a bunch of "actors" whose line deliverance is nearly as painful as a stab in the kidneys.
Another attempt to pick up what would have been a lousy 2D movie and adding some fake 3D to it, thus making it a capfest of a 3D fixture. Still, if you have nothing else to do... may be a choice.
TLA has made 224M USD so far including international, and it's still going. It made 130M USD in the US alone. Man, that's funny. After all the hoo ha the film is still a smashing success! Well done M Night and keep it up!
Since when is $224M a "smashing success"? It certainly isn't for a movie that cost $150M to make! Take away marketing and this thing is barely above ground. And considering it made a whopping $1M last week, it certainly isn't "still going." It's dead and it certainly wasn't a hit. And as for all those other "hits" people keep claiming Shyamalan has had, maybe you should all do a little research before you make such ignorant statements. The only two American hits he has made are "The Sixth Sense" and "Signs". "Unbreakable" broke even. "The Village" was a mild success, but half of it's total was from its opening weekend, which was expected after two major successes and a film that didn't ruffle anyone's feathers. "The Happening" made a whopping $64M here and "The Lady in the Water" made a far worse $42M. He's only had THREE films open at #1. What a smashing success he is!!!!
Ok, let's break down the numbers, shall we? These numbers only include box office takings (both US and international because that is the true indication of the movie's revenue). The numbers do not include DVD sales, merchandising etc so even these are understated. But any movie studio would be happy to see numbers like these from one of its directors.
Sixth Sense - budget 40MM, Gross revenue 673MM
Signs - budget 72MM, Gross revenue 408MM
Unbreakable - budget 75MM, Gross revenue 250 MM
The Village - budget 60MM, Gross revenue 257MM
The Happening - budget 48MM, gross revenue 163MM
The lady in the water - Ok, I'll give you that one, but actually it still basically broke even.
TLA is up to 260M USD now and, as I said, still going strong. I think the numbers speak for themselves. And, in case it hasn't been mentioned before, the movie business is still a business and at the end of the day, if Shyamalan wasn't bankable, he wouldn't keep getting the jobs.
Why does everyone think the race issue is why most people hate this movie? Might I be the first to say:
M NIGHT IS *NOT* ASIAN. He is Indian. Are people so racially impaired that they don't know the difference anymore? So for the gracially impaired let me me explain it. Indian = Someone from India. Called 'East Indians' these days. Asian= someone from a country in Asia, ie China, Singapore, Japan, Korea etc. I don't care where India is located on the map, for the love of zombies, Indians do not belong to the same race as Asians. They are a *different* race!!
Now that I have that out of the way...
People hated The Last Airbender (as did I) because it butchered an amazing animated series and was blah and unwatchable. The characters, aside from being incorrectly cast (and they are incorrectly cast) were completely out of character to the series, way too much was cut, and Shyamalan unfairly told his own version of the story.
Shyamalan is a hack who shouldn't be allowed to make movies anymore and I have no idea why he was allowed the reins on this one. If they hired a competent director to re-do it, as has been done with many movies before, they'd not only make more money but regain the respect of Avatar fans.
As it is, they've completely alienated what would otherwise be a very large and loyal audience. the *only* people who can enjoy this film are those who have never seen, nor plan to see the tv series.
Get your facts right first.
1. India is a prominent country in the continent of Asia. So if your definition of Indian is not Asian-you probably North American which I infer from the your usage of the term 'East Indian'. The rest of the world considers Indians as an Asians.
2. India is a country with incredible racial diversity with a very large and sizable population who are of the Mongoloid race in the North-East of India. They are as much if not more Indian as a North, Central or South Indian. Indians are not a separate and different race anymore, but an amalgamation of several races. It hard to say with certainty what the indigenous race that inhabited Indian sub-continent looks like now but it is probably Dravidian.
3. The colour spectrum of Indian race varies from from end of the spectrum to another.
After seeing the animated series ,the movie sucked.I cannot disagree with that.
Why does everyone think the race issue is why most people hate this movie? Might I be the first to say:
M NIGHT IS *NOT* ASIAN. He is Indian. Are people so racially impaired that they don't know the difference anymore? So for the gracially impaired let me me explain it. Indian = Someone from India. Called 'East Indians' these days. Asian= someone from a country in Asia, ie China, Singapore, Japan, Korea etc. I don't care where India is located on the map, for the love of zombies, Indians do not belong to the same race as Asians. They are a *different* race!!
Now that I have that out of the way...
People hated The Last Airbender (as did I) because it butchered an amazing animated series and was blah and unwatchable. The characters, aside from being incorrectly cast (and they are incorrectly cast) were completely out of character to the series, way too much was cut, and Shyamalan unfairly told his own version of the story.
Shyamalan is a hack who shouldn't be allowed to make movies anymore and I have no idea why he was allowed the reins on this one. If they hired a competent director to re-do it, as has been done with many movies before, they'd not only make more money but regain the respect of Avatar fans.
As it is, they've completely alienated what would otherwise be a very large and loyal audience. the *only* people who can enjoy this film are those who have never seen, nor plan to see the tv series.
Why does everyone think the race issue is why most people hate this movie? Might I be the first to say:
M NIGHT IS *NOT* ASIAN. He is Indian. Are people so racially impaired that they don't know the difference anymore? So for the gracially impaired let me me explain it. Indian = Someone from India. Called 'East Indians' these days. Asian= someone from a country in Asia, ie China, Singapore, Japan, Korea etc. I don't care where India is located on the map, for the love of zombies, Indians do not belong to the same race as Asians. They are a *different* race!!
Now that I have that out of the way...
People hated The Last Airbender (as did I) because it butchered an amazing animated series and was blah and unwatchable. The characters, aside from being incorrectly cast (and they are incorrectly cast) were completely out of character to the series, way too much was cut, and Shyamalan unfairly told his own version of the story.
Shyamalan is a hack who shouldn't be allowed to make movies anymore and I have no idea why he was allowed the reins on this one. If they hired a competent director to re-do it, as has been done with many movies before, they'd not only make more money but regain the respect of Avatar fans.
As it is, they've completely alienated what would otherwise be a very large and loyal audience. the *only* people who can enjoy this film are those who have never seen, nor plan to see the tv series.
Not caring about it's location on the map doesn't make it true. Asia is a Continent containing many many countries one of which is India, it's the primary reason that many Indians are refereed to as "South Asians" or in the United states as "Asian-Indians".
Anyway. The "race bending" issue is just the tip of the iceberg and although an important issue to address I'll agree it isn't really the thing that made this movie such a failure.
For one thing, it suffers from "Akira" syndrome. In trying to condense several volumes of plot and story into one 90 minute feature it fails to tell any of the story in a coherent manner. Obviously some editing has to be done on a project like this, but not when those edits negatively effect the story.
The second is that Shyamalan is essentially a horrible cross between Ed Wood and Stephen King. It's clear he has an incredible passion for film making, but he's actually not very good at it, he clearly has some very original and imaginative ideas, but he's not always very skilled at communicating those ideas properly, especially when it comes to endings. When I look at Signs, the Village, Lady in the Water and even The Happening I can see the groundwork for a good solid and entertaining story, but they're frustrating to watch as Shyamalan's hamfisted style makes a jumbled mess out of the story he's trying to tell.
Lastly, the 3D issue. As a whole I feel that the adoption of 3D is leading our cinema down the path that James Cameron and George Lucas paved where technological innovation is frequently seen as an acceptable replacement for plot and character development.
But it really only works if the movie was designed to be in 3D in the first place and Airbender obviously wasn't.
India is in Asia - look at a map genius.
Also, whoever he may or may not have alienated (I'm dubious about thus claim to be honest) the film has made 315m USD to date.
Not bad for a film which was so badly panned by the critics.
It didn't seem to alienate that many people, did it?
Haters need to relax, the man is a success, just accept it and move on.
Money doesn't translate to a good movie... M. Night Shyamalan directed a piece of garbage that made a mockery of the animated series. He took a great story with great characters and destroyed it. The story was diluted and the characters were portrayed by the worst actors M. Night Shyamalan could find apparently. I have no bias towards MNS at all I just believe it was a shitty movie based on acting and delivery.
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