I expected to. As my boyfriend can tell you, I'm occasionally too receptive to outside influence when it comes to movies, especially ones that garner strong reactions either positively or negatively. That's why I don't read reviews of movies I'm REALLY interested in - I want to make sure that when I see it, how I feel isn't influenced by other people's opinions.
In the case of The Last Airbender, it was impossible NOT to hear about what other people thought. Usually it involved visiting mortal harm on M. Night Shyamalan. And I don't disagree with them - he did some things with a franchise I'm extremely fond of that he should be ashamed of - but I also thought the film had some really beautiful moments. When our heroes enter the Southern Water Tribe city, for instance: it's impossible to watch that great, majestic glacier and not think of the White City of Gondor. And the choreography for the benders was lovely to watch, a combination of dance, tai chi, and martial arts.
The effects for the bending itself were interesting, but revealed one of three incredibly major problems I had with the film: the color palette is so muted and dark. Even when the fire benders are fighting, the flames aren't as bright or fearsome as they should be. The television show is so vibrant, and color is SO thematically important, that Shyamalan really did the property a disservice by making it so dim. There's an overabundance of blues and muted grays and whites that's just depressing, which leads me to my next problem...
It's so JOYLESS. The show had such a sense of humor, more so than just Sokka's comedic relief - Aang was a clown, and Momo and Appa where jokesters, and one of the show's real strengths was its ability to handle really serious situations and balance them with light-hearted moments. The film is so, unrelentingly somber, although Jackson Rathbone gets a couple of good moments (plus his line delivery is pretty excellent). Actually, that's a good segue for the BIGGEST problem I had with the movie...
Nicola Peltz is a TERRIBLE actress.
No, really. I know a lot of people had big problems with Noah Ringer as Aang, but he's not so bad. Humorless, like I was talking about earlier, but that's Shyamalan's shoddy directing and not the kid. He was fine. The problem was that Peltz ruined every single scene she was in, even when she didn't say anything: flat line delivery, bizarre and over-enthusiastic facial expressions when she was in the background (she reminded me of a kid doing a school play, actually), and some kind of energy-sucking awfulness that made all her scenes a chore. Ringer is actually quite likable in the scenes without Peltz, especially when he has a real actor like Dev Patel to bounce off of.
Let's talk about Patel; and Shaun Toub, and Cliff Curtis, and how the ENTIRE Fire Nation was awesomely badass and clearly the single best part of this film. Patel smolders with rage at the father who betrayed him and the family that despises him, while Toub protects him with a paternal fierceness that's incredible to watch. Say what you want about Shyamalan's casting, but I will go to my grave defending these people and the complexity they brought to a mostly flat landscape.
I would like to watch The Last Airbender again on a non-airplane screen, mainly to see what a real screen does for the color and also the sound quality. I can't really comment on the sound because of how AWFUL the speakers on the plane were, but I don't think there was anything obviously wrong with it. I honestly do hope the other two films planned for this franchise get made, because I think there's good stuff there - Shyamalan just needs to get over himself and let someone with talent direct it.
