Critic Reviews
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Nigel Floyd, Time Out
One is bored and stupefied by what seems like an eternity of vacuous spectacle, cod-Buddhist tosh and clunking dialogue.
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Christopher Orr, The Atlantic
[T]he film works so hard to explain its plot developments that it scarcely has any time left over to dramatize them. Exposition has not merely vanquished mimesis, it has burned its homes to the ground and sown salt in its fields.
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Lou Lumenick, New York Post
Stilted dialogue, wooden acting, glacial pacing, cheesy special effects, tacky-looking sets, ugly costumes, poorly staged and edited action sequences, all shown in murky, cut-rate 3-D.
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Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
A dull, boring, poorly acted, limply written and thoroughly unappealing fantasy, featuring bland characters locked in a struggle of no interest.
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Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal
M. Night Shyamalan's big-screen live-action version of the popular Nickelodeon animated TV series constitutes a form of Chinese water torture in which tin-ear line-readings take the place of drips.
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Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine
Please, Hollywood, if there's to be another Airbender movie, hand the job to some efficient hack, and not to a once mesmerizing artist who's lost his way.
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Jeff Beck, Examiner.com
[Shyamalan] works so much better with stories that are slower in development, where the atmosphere and tone drive the film, and where you're never quite sure what's going on (though not in the sense where you're completely confused, like this film).
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Dave White, Movies.com
This is a kid's movie that doesn't seem to realize that it's a kid's movie.
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Joshua Starnes, ComingSoon.net
Bad acting, overstuffed exposition and running time far too brief for the amount of plot shoved into it reduce The Last Airbender into parody of a big summer film as Shyamalan manages to hit every single fantasy film pothole.
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Mark Pfeiffer, Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema
The Last Airbender is swollen with portentous mumbo jumbo and realized in the most simplistic and mundane ways imaginable.
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Mike Edwards, What Culture
The Last Airbender is a horrific mish-mash of genres that follows a depressingly large number of dead ends in adapting its source material.
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Matt Kelemen, Las Vegas CityLife
Kiddie-strength action scenes drag the film down, but the kiss of death is Shyamalan's gratuitous use of earth tones and the general dull, drab look of the film. ... drastically reduces the intensity of the 3-D effects
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James O'Ehley, iAfrica.com
An amateurish mess.
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Felix Vasquez Jr., Cinema Crazed
Is it a masterpiece? Oh god no, but... I'm intrigued to see where the next film goes...
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Jason Best, Movie Talk
The constant references to 'benders' can't help but elicit sniggers from British audiences ... the plotting is stodgy, the dialogue stinks and the acting is wooden.
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Jeffrey Chen, Window to the Movies
As far as children's entertainment goes (and it is children's entertainment), it could be a lot worse.
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R. L. Shaffer, IGN DVD
The film is an unmitigated disaster, a putrid patchwork of the original series stitched together by wretched performances, bad creative decisions and a story that's all exposition, no depth.
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Mike McGranaghan, Aisle Seat
Mere words can barely describe the sheer inanity on display.
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John J. Puccio, Movie Metropolis
It's a nice movie to look at, as long as you ignore the characters, plot, and action.
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Simon Miraudo, Quickflix
It seems as if a good film could be made out of The Last Airbender's tale. But this is not that film.
Read all 26 critic reviews
Featured Audience Ratings
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Never having seen the tv show i can say this. It was not a bad movie. Wasnt great just interesting. I like fantasy type stuff so this was a good show for me. A pretty unique story thanks to the tv show ive been told. But supposedly the director did not capture it. NOW knowing many… More
Never having seen the tv show i can say this. It was not a bad movie. Wasnt great just interesting. I like fantasy type stuff so this was a good show for me. A pretty unique story thanks to the tv show ive been told. But supposedly the director did not capture it. NOW knowing many people who did watch the show. I hear this was not good. I will try and watch the tv show now to see how bad the movie supposedly was.
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Even as someone who is not familiar with the anime of the same name, you can tell that this has probably little to do with it. The set-up, world-building and idea behind this mythology is great and interesting. There are also a couple of genuinely fun action scenes, especially when… More
Even as someone who is not familiar with the anime of the same name, you can tell that this has probably little to do with it. The set-up, world-building and idea behind this mythology is great and interesting. There are also a couple of genuinely fun action scenes, especially when the bender work with their elements. The main problem are the characters. Why do the main characters from the ice look Caucasian but everyone around them Inuit? Those two aren't much of actors anyway. Then there is this somewhat flat but often bratty main character. All that makes it hard to care for everything that's going on. The film is still entertaining and offers some nice special effects, gorgeous landscapes and cities. So the result is not as catastrophic as fans of the original may want to make you believe. It's not that great a movie on its own either, though. And the sequel the ending dares to hint at very strongly will probably never happen.
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There are few films that I advocate destroying, but sadly this is one of them. Why you ask? Well...I fear that aliens might one day accidentally pick up the film's signal while some poor soul is streaming it into their home. Wielding a rare power to create water out of thin air,… More
There are few films that I advocate destroying, but sadly this is one of them. Why you ask? Well...I fear that aliens might one day accidentally pick up the film's signal while some poor soul is streaming it into their home. Wielding a rare power to create water out of thin air, a power much needed by earth as it's rising population has made water a precious resource, they would end up seeing The Last Airbender and assume that it is representative of the Earth as a whole. Rather than being afraid of Earth's inhabitants, I fear they would be bored to tears by the story and in the end come to the decision that Earth is not worth saving.
So yeah...I have pretty good reason to want this film obliterated from the face of the planet.
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Dear God... You have no idea. Really, you have no idea how bad this movie really is until you watch it. The TV show "Avatar: The Last Airbender" didn't need a live-action adaptation, seeing that the show itself was actually quite good. As an adaptation, this film is… More
Dear God... You have no idea. Really, you have no idea how bad this movie really is until you watch it. The TV show "Avatar: The Last Airbender" didn't need a live-action adaptation, seeing that the show itself was actually quite good. As an adaptation, this film is complete and utter failure. But even if you're not a fan, there are literally only 3 things this film does right. One, cinematography. Shots look good for the most part. Two, special effects for the bending look good. All other visual effects (green-screening, creatures in the movie, that kind of thing) look iffy to say the least. Three, the soundtrack. While sounding generic at points, it's epic when it needs to be. Now, literally assume that almost every other aspect of filmmaking (acting, writing, fight choreography, etc.) has been botched. That's what this is, 90 minutes of nothing but pain. As a piece of filmmaking, it's a total disaster, but as an adaptation, it only dives even further into the depths of hell. Avoid at all costs unless you're looking for "Unintentional Comedy, the Movie."
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A world populated by four tribes who can manipulate the elements of fire, water, earth and air can only regain balance upon the return of The Avatar, but the ambitious ruler of the Fire Nation is interested only in conquest. M. Night Shyamalan clearly wished to create a epic fantasy… More
A world populated by four tribes who can manipulate the elements of fire, water, earth and air can only regain balance upon the return of The Avatar, but the ambitious ruler of the Fire Nation is interested only in conquest. M. Night Shyamalan clearly wished to create a epic fantasy world in the vein of Lord Of the Rings by pillaging Eastern religions and philosophy. Unfortunately the mythology he created is muddled and inconsistent and despite some impressive visual spectacle the whole film falls flat on its face. The kid's TV standard cast are completely lacking in the kind of presence or charisma needed to pull this kind of thing off and some painful exposition and very clunky dialogue makes it very difficult to care about any of it. MNS's grasp of directing action also misses the mark badly; watching children perform Tai Chi in slow motion as hordes of extras fling themselves around does not exactly make for a roller coaster of thrills and excitement. The costumes and effects are nice but with the sole exception of the visuals, everything about this film seems deeply amateurish to the point where it looks like a very expensive school play. Plus anyone brought up in Britain in the 1980s is going to have a very hard time taking a film that constantly references the character's experiences at the hands of "the benders" seriously...
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M. Night Shyamalan is one of the most gifted artists working in the Hollywood right now and with The Last Airbender he has created an epic that proves that film as huge as this, can be made without losing a director's own trademarks.
Shyamalan has lost none of his eye for… More
M. Night Shyamalan is one of the most gifted artists working in the Hollywood right now and with The Last Airbender he has created an epic that proves that film as huge as this, can be made without losing a director's own trademarks.
Shyamalan has lost none of his eye for details and beautiful visual compositions. He has always been a undisputed master of slow-motion, but here he takes it to the completely new heights. Usually when we see a fight scene in film, it does not offer anything but fists and unimaginative solutions with camera, but in The Last Airbender each and every of those scenes are different and something we have never seen. They are not about blood or fists, they are about pitch perfect choreography and resembles a mix of an martial-arts and dance.
In the past decade we have seen many epics that are completely lacking the fresh ideas and uncompromising director. Peter Jackson tried to make something innovative out of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, but drowned into his own ambition resulting a dull and messy trilogy that felt ultimately quite lifeless compared to many of todays other fantasy-films. Harry Potter franchise has also at times suffered from recycling the same ideas over and over again way too many times. Shyamalan succeeds because he is willing to take huge risks with his material. He took an idea and re-imagined it.
I have seen the anime which this film is based on and it is completely different kind of experience. The series were much more lighter and had more comedy in it. Shyamalan's vision is much more darker and serious affair. This is a film with deep psychological undertones and these characters are far from your typical superheroes. With all the flaws and insecurity, they actually feel very human and we care about their fate.
The Last Airbender is a technical tour de force that is a further proof of what Shyamalan is actually capable of as an filmmaker. At times it lacks the tight script from many of his other films, but it is still very well made entertainment with Shyamalan's auteurist touches in it.
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I can't believe I actually payed to watch this turd. Who knows, maybe this was going to be the film where Shyamalan stepped it up. The trailer seemed somewhat promising.
I remember in an interview Shyamalan said "The Last Airbender" is his best movie yet. Just comes to… More
I can't believe I actually payed to watch this turd. Who knows, maybe this was going to be the film where Shyamalan stepped it up. The trailer seemed somewhat promising.
I remember in an interview Shyamalan said "The Last Airbender" is his best movie yet. Just comes to show how oblivious the man is to the awful films he makes. I don't think any work in cinema should receive zero stars, but if anything were to come close, it would be this.
I don't know how this director keeps making movies. They keep getting worse and worse. You'd think after "The Happening" someone would step up and say, "Alright Shyamalan, that's it, you're done ruining people's lives."
Ok, let's talk about the movie at hand. Horrible acting, no tension, wafer thin plot, and underwhelming action scenes. The film is garbage. Absolute garbage. Not even the slow-motion is cool. Everything is bad. Please, if you haven't seen this, do not watch it.
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M. Night Shayamalan made a mistake by making this horribly terrible storyline.
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The Last Airbender one of the worst films ever made, Shymalan better get back on track or he will suck forever. How do you ruin soure material, I mean he couldn't even get their names correct, he got rid of almost all the characters, and none of the episodes were in this movie… More
The Last Airbender one of the worst films ever made, Shymalan better get back on track or he will suck forever. How do you ruin soure material, I mean he couldn't even get their names correct, he got rid of almost all the characters, and none of the episodes were in this movie from Season 1. The acting sucked, they all looked in pain for some reason, Noah Ringer is a shoe in for Worst Actor of 2011, he was so horrible that its not even laughable. I will never watch this again, it was too horrible to speak of. The special effects were truly awful, the firebending and waterbending look so cheesy, and the earthbending was slow.... SLOW, in one scene it was going like .02 miles an hour. The firebenders in the show get fire from their hands, Shymalan made it so they had to get it from a torch or some shit. This movie is god awful, every moment is a pain to watch.
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I wanted to like this movie. But I couldn't. The Last Airbender is one of the worst movies i'v ever seen in my entire life! The plot is difficult to comprehend and the explosion of CGI makes it look so good that it looks bad. I love the anime series. It is one of the best… More
I wanted to like this movie. But I couldn't. The Last Airbender is one of the worst movies i'v ever seen in my entire life! The plot is difficult to comprehend and the explosion of CGI makes it look so good that it looks bad. I love the anime series. It is one of the best cartoon series on TV at this time that boasts terrific animation, good storytelling and deepness into the characters. The Last Airbender ruined the series' reputation.
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It might be an awesome movie for children but for adult... I really doubt. I liked the special effects. But the people who was with power and stuffs were really lame. Although I thought Dev Patel's performance was good but sadly, he was the only one who seemed to blend in his… More
It might be an awesome movie for children but for adult... I really doubt. I liked the special effects. But the people who was with power and stuffs were really lame. Although I thought Dev Patel's performance was good but sadly, he was the only one who seemed to blend in his character. The ending looked like there was going to be another part. Sometimes this sort of ending is really frustrating (if they don't plan to make another one like they hint). But I hope this ends here. Would be a waste of money if they don't stop.
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While the general idea behind "The Last Airbender" is not to blame for the films utter failure, it's the atrocious screenplay that results from that idea that smothers it. While I am a large fan of M. Night Shyamalan (I have enjoy all his previous films for they are… More
While the general idea behind "The Last Airbender" is not to blame for the films utter failure, it's the atrocious screenplay that results from that idea that smothers it. While I am a large fan of M. Night Shyamalan (I have enjoy all his previous films for they are each a confident expression of his visions, bumps and bruises included), he is squarely to blame for this incredible folly. His screenplay is incoherent, inconsistent and just plain boring. The silted dialogue is made even worse by a shocking array of inept child actors. While occasional spurts of his auteurial voice do make it through the endless barrage of cheese and special effects, "The Last Airbender" ends up being a flavorless, corny and just plain stupid film. It's a shame because, like I said, the general idea isn't a poor one. Lets pray a sequel never surfaces.
Though I will say that the only audience for this film are 6 to 10 year old boys, and for them this will work perfectly fine.
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This movie is a little hard to follow. Superheroes can control the four elements - air, fire, water and earth. Only one the avatar can control all four. He is absent for 100 years until a global war is launched and he is awakened to save everyone.
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If my experience with this movie were a fairy tale, I'd start it off with "Once upon a time". Only it was a horror story, so I'll start it like this. My completely awesome cousins (6 year old, and 4 year old) were playing with me for a while, when one of my cousins… More
If my experience with this movie were a fairy tale, I'd start it off with "Once upon a time". Only it was a horror story, so I'll start it like this. My completely awesome cousins (6 year old, and 4 year old) were playing with me for a while, when one of my cousins (Lucy, 6 year old) began to watch "The Last Airbender" It was her favorite movie. I figured "Why not?" They also like X-Men 3 and How to Train your Dragon, which were also good movies, so I assumed this might be good too. LORD, WAS I WRONG!
The worst part about this unholy abomination is the script. I could have gotten better results from my 4 year old cousin. I honestly felt I had written the same things when I was writing fantasy stories in 3rd grade, and that is NOT a good thing.
The acting was beyond horrific. I'll give credit to Aasif Mandhi and Admiral Zhao, but apart from trhat, it was pretty darn bad. The low lights seem to be Dev Patel as Prince Zuko (Who sadly was my favorite character from the cartoon) and Noah Ringer as Aang.
Oh, I'm sorry, I mean Oong. Ring a bell? OF COURSE NOT! In the TV series, the Avatar's name was CLEARLY Aang. It's pronounced Aang, it's spelled Aang. WHY IS HE CALLED OONG!
Truthfully, I love M Night Shyamalan, and will always love him. I love the TV series "Avatar: The Last Airbender" and will always love it. But I cannot bring myself to even ENJOY "The Last Airbender" and probably never will. In a sentence: The 5th Worst Movie I've Ever Seen.
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This movie may put the final nail in M. Night Shyamalans career as a director. Terrible performances left to right, especially Naoh Ringer as the films protagonist. The film's visuals are also terrible. The film tries to shrink the entire first season into an 103 min. film.… More
This movie may put the final nail in M. Night Shyamalans career as a director. Terrible performances left to right, especially Naoh Ringer as the films protagonist. The film's visuals are also terrible. The film tries to shrink the entire first season into an 103 min. film. This results in the story being rushed and incomprehensible. The film fails on every level.
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Poorly acted, cardboard dialogue, lethargic, humorless, few of the words that describe this could-have-been fantasy epic. I thought I'd go for the awesome martial arts and special effects but turns out, even that was poorly adapted.
It's all quite depressing, considering… More
Poorly acted, cardboard dialogue, lethargic, humorless, few of the words that describe this could-have-been fantasy epic. I thought I'd go for the awesome martial arts and special effects but turns out, even that was poorly adapted.
It's all quite depressing, considering the awesome source material M.Night had to work with.
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This is an awesome film for both children and adults. Its the first time in a long time when I said to myself I can't wait to see the sequel. Some reviews are disappointed because it doesn't follow the animated version, that I know nothing about as I don't watch… More
This is an awesome film for both children and adults. Its the first time in a long time when I said to myself I can't wait to see the sequel. Some reviews are disappointed because it doesn't follow the animated version, that I know nothing about as I don't watch animated films very often and usually by mistake, So maybe that's why I judge this film for what it is and what its not like or could be. Many others have told you the details of what the film is about. What I'm telling you is this is a must watch film.. 5 Stars
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Wow a bit surprised how badly this film has been rated? It's far from great but as the start of another quest saga it was ok. Maybe it was aimed at a family audience as it's based on a series of cartoons? It has a grand scale feel to it and is very SFX driven, and they are… More
Wow a bit surprised how badly this film has been rated? It's far from great but as the start of another quest saga it was ok. Maybe it was aimed at a family audience as it's based on a series of cartoons? It has a grand scale feel to it and is very SFX driven, and they are good. Some of the battles scenes and overall story and acting were far from great. However it's still watchable and quite fun if you like these types of films.
Read all 20 featured audience ratings
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