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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Comments
I think it A.O. Scott's:
“The Last Airbender”? Let’s hope so
was worth rounding it up to 10 this once.
The more I see the critics of this film, the more I see the racist overtones in them. This is clearly a case of going after the Asian guy who has dared to make a movie with an Asian bias and storyline. Shame on America for allowing this to happen.
I think it is an absolutely brilliant film and should be recognized as such. M Night is clearly a great, bankable director. All of his films have made good, solid consistent money - so they are clearly popular with audiences.
The critics should get real jobs instead of leeching off people who are actally doing it. And they should hide their hatred of the Asian guy while they do it.
Pathetic bunch.
Really? It's the critics who are being racist? Not the filmmakers behind this movie who declined to cast Asian actors in Asian roles?
http://www.racebending.com/v3/
Yes, really. Don't give me that racebending nonsense. After decades of miscasting and stereotyping of people of colour in the Western media, these racebending clowns suddenly decide to wake up and go after the one successful Asian Director out there and try and bring him down? Come on. It's not as if the caucasian dominated entertainment media isn't trying hard enough to do that already. In fact, they have had it in for Shyamalan for a while. How stupid they must think we Asians are that we don't even stick up for each other when it really counts?
The only way racebending.com will ever be taken seriously is if they continue to make high profile victims of hollywood people who continually miscast and stereotype Asians. Otherwise they are just jumping on to a bandwagon to destroy Shyamalan (probably because he's a "foreigner") set off by the caucasian media and they are too blind to see it.
Not sure what happened to you, but get over it. This has nothing to do with race. This movie is being called a piece of crap because it is a piece of crap. And it's very dissapointing because the original story and TV series were quite good.
I really hope you're just trolling.
"How stupid they must think we Asians are that we don't even stick up for each other when it really counts?"
Good to know that all Asians in the world find it a priority to band together and defend a second-rate filmmaker in the US simply because he shares their skin color.
It's also good to know that the whole western media finds it a priority to gang up on an asian filmmaker just because he is Asian.
To blatantly support someone simply BECAUSE of their race is racist. It's been an overwhelming negative response to this film, including the true fans who saw the film and wanted nothing more than to love it.
Your insinuation is both sad and pathetic. See the movie, and then argue against the actual detailed complaints of the film. But you can't. So you won't.
If this has noting to do with race, then why is Shyamalan being accused of being racist?
Shyamalan is Indian. Indians are Caucasian (non-white, but ethnically Caucasian).
So... stop being an idiot.
Because idiotic people like to jump to conclusions about racism WAY too easily. Maybe it's the white guilt, I don't really understand it either...
BUT, what I do understand is that you are doing the exact same thing by jumping to conclusions about all of these critics.
Now stop calling the kettle black! If you liked the movie, good for you. Can we please leave the whole "racism" thing out of this?
Yes, this is why Aang Lee won the Oscar, right? Or why Kurosawa is thought to be one of the most (if not THE most) influential filmmaker by pretty much everybody who knows anything about film in the western world (or, really, any part of the world). Or John Woo, the most influential ACTION filmmaker probably ever...
How about our love affair with actual asian cinema (which is a HUGE industry, BTW, so Hollywood isn't everything) ? Park Chan Wook or Miike? People here LOVE their stuff. I'm sure that people in Hollywood would love to fund English language projects of theirs (and have to a smaller extent with Miike... MOH), but many Asian filmmakers would feel stifled by Hollywood's way of making movies. They are much more free to make the movie that they want to make in their own country. Probably a large reason why directors like Aang Lee (and prominent Asian actors) like to go back and make movies in their own country, in their own language, even though they could be making movies in Hollywood at the drop of a hat.
Stop talking about things you know nothing of. And yes, I am aware that you are likely just trolling for a response right now.
After reading that steaming pile of a comment i think you are clearly TROLLing or you are clinically insane. I adored that cartoon series with all my heart, and i will be damned if that hack of a director will soil the warm fuzzies i have about the series. From what i have read already this tool tried to cram 3 SEASONS of well written story and character development into a 1+ hour movie.
Yes, but none of them are actually making movies in Hollywood though are they? So it's ok - they are off somewhere else, not daring to be part of our "establishment". Your argument is useless.
Well, the real test comes from now on. Let's say we forgive these people, including critics and journalists, who have suddenly decided to wake up and target racism in hollywood, which has been going on for decades, by the way.
What I really want to see is what they do now. Let's see if they go as hard against all the other injustices that go on on a regular basis.
If they don't, then we will know that it is all just a big attack on Shyamalan. Which would be a shameful thing for America and the World in general.
Hey here's something interesting you might want to see. One of the racebending.com's founder has a blog.
Here is the link :
http://jedifreac.livejournal.com/
Now, what I find interesting, for someone who is supposed to be concerned about race equality is that there is a picture at the top of her blog. And the picture does not appear to have any asian/ people of colour at all.
Now why wouldn't she put any asian people up there, in order to promote the cause? very strange, don't you think?
I actually think that Joejeezy has a point.
Why have people always had it in for Shyamalan? His films usually do reasonably well at the the box office so the audiences must be reasonably happy with them.
Accusing one of the most successful asian directors of racism, but not mentioning all the other racist/ stereotyping that goes in Hollywood and television, and has done for some time. That is strange, also.
I think it stinks. America was not built on bringing immigrants down. I think people should go and make up their own minds about the film, not be swayed by journalists and critics who clearly have it in for Shyamalan. I really hope it is not because of his color.
What about Number Eight, Sharon, third from the right?
Bad movies still make money (e.g. Transformers 2).
Shyamalan had one hit movie and he was expected to repeat the success, but has failed miserably. It's not that complicated.
Yeah, great, put the asian girl, facing sideways from the camera, just so you can;t really tell. Then make sure she is protected by a white guy, because obviously that is the only way she could possibly be happy and allowed to be on the page in the first place.
Come on, one of the heads of this organisation doesn't have enough respect for asians/ people of color to put them front and center on their blog. No, they pick a "perfect" blonde lady to be right in the centre and put one asian in the corner, out of about 10 non asians.
Again, way to support the cause.
That's the cast of Battlestar Galactica, you ninny.
Well, it may be but the point still stands. Why not put some asian faces front and center on your blog if you are someone who cares about these issues? You are just pandering to the stereotypes.
And my analysis of how the cast is placed still stands.
(off topic from the movie I am boycotting because i hate the director)
I don't know why Hollywood success is the only criteria of success. Overseas and asian markets are very lucrative and successful all on their own without the "white market" giving it approval.
to assume you need the nod from white hollywood to be considered successful and not getting it is in anyway important is plain silly.
btw i just saw Redcliff - thought it was more amazing than any historical epic movie hollywood has produced. and I am GLAD it wasn't made by hollywood - because if it had been, it would have been slicked up, sexed up, and dumbed down for mass production and happy meal toys.
Oh? So now the kettle has to be black huh? You make it sound so negative to be a black kettle in a white kettle's world. People like you make me sick.
The funniest thing about this is that, despite what the critics say, lots of people still go and watch his movies. Therefore by definition, he is producing what the audience wants to see.
Now critics may be high-minded and say that the movies are bad, but it seems that the general population does not agree with them. Doesn't that show you how useless critics are and how you really shouldn't listen to a word they say? Clearly, they don't speak for the audience, they speak for themselves only.
I think it's hilarious the way these critics/ journalists get their panties in a bunch over Shyamalan, while the audience loves him and he keeps on getting greenlighted!
Well done M Night - keep it up!
The animated show is so well loved by its fans that we could expect nothing but a good first weekend. However, this movie really does suck and now everyone knows it. As far as the issue of race goes, it would seem that one should hire actors that represent the original character's race. Perhaps we should demand that Captain America be Asian in the upcoming film in retaliation to this disaster.
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