Avatar: The Last Airbender Review
Sabtu, 29 Januari 2011
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I'm quite sure that this movie proved to be a huge disappointment for many Avatar fans out there. I watched the movie with little hopes in the first place so there was little room for disappointment. I never was a fan of Shyamalan's works in the first place and I knew that any adaption was not going to be better than the original. With that being said, though I am an Avatar fan, it's been awhile since I last saw the cartoon so I didn't remember some of the details except for some of the major events. Therefore, I wasn't quite looking at picking out details from the movie that differed from the cartoon. Despite this, the movie was definitely a huge letdown.
The movie starts off with the same intro of the four nations as you see in the cartoon, only you don't actually see anyone bending any elements nor is anyone saying the names of the nations. All you see is a silhouette of someone randomly performing moves that LOOK like martial arts. Only after do you get a brief narration from Katara, who by all means mispronounces Avatar as "Ah-vatar". We are then taken to a scene of a sphere made of water that is ridiculously dripping and losing most of its water. We realize then that this is Katara trying to Water bend. And here the story continues.
First off, never have I ever seen such bad acting and scripting in the movie before. All the dialogue sounded extremely awkward and stilted. Perhaps this is because most of the lines are proper grammar. Most people do not speak like that in real life so there is no sense of casual conversation between the people. It all sounds as if everyone is simply reading off a script. Even the old-time actors look as if they're absolutely bored and don't at all care about the movie. They just sort of follow along with the crappiness of the other actors. Also, none of the characters express any actual emotion when they say their lines. Ringer looks more like a wooden child actor, as if reading his lines from a nearby teleprompter. And when there are times he looks slightly more casual he ends up sounding like a modern American teenager full of slang instead of someone who's supposed to the Avatar. Petz and Rathbone hardly do a better job. All the line still feel like they're simply being memorized. In one scene in the Northern Water Tribe when Aang went missing, instead of something like "OMG, Aang's missing! What do we do? We have to go find him! Agh, where on earth should we start looking??" it went something more along the lines of "Oh, Aang is missing. Let's go find him. No worries. I'm sure nothing wrong is going to happen. He'll turn up somewhere. No biggie." How on earth could something like this be said in such a calm manner?? Also any speeches that were supposed to be inspiring ended up being extremely cliched and ineffective. Come on, I'm quite sure there's a better phrase than "You're all AWESOME people." First off, I don't think there even was the slang meaning of "awesome" during that time yet. In the end, the presentations of all the actors make it sound like they either don't at all care about the movie or they know they're in a movie, which, as a result, gives viewers the sensation that they are indeed only watching a movie. Viewers are not being caught up in the storyline and that is a huge setback for any movie that wants to be successful.
Secondly, I want to comment on the "mispronunciations" of names in the movie. Except for Yue, Katara, and Zuko, the names of all the characters sounded different from the pronunciations in the cartoon. Aang here sounded more like "Ung", Sokka as "Soak-ka", and Iroh as "Eeroh". For any Avatar fan, this will most certainly bother them. I realize that Shyamalan was trying to make the names sound more like their Asian origins, particularly Japanese, but I feel that this was a bad choice when you're creating a movie that's based on an extremely popular cartoon series. You know that countless Avatar fans will come to watch it so why not just use the old cartoon pronunciations instead of giving them "new" names? This mispronunciation is only going to dissuade Avatar fans from watching the movie.
Thirdly, I really wasn't a fan of the way the benders bended their elements. In the cartoon, the elements responded to each move. However, in the movie, the benders first pretended to do martial arts for about five minutes and THEN something happens. This is particularly evident (and annoying) in the battle between the Earth and Fire benders. All of the benders were taking forever to do their "martial arts", only for a stone the size of a dinner plate to fly at the enemy. Seriously? Shyamalan may have wanted more of an emphasis of the choreography but this plan only ends up backfiring. Focusing on the choreography ends up giving viewers more of a chance to spot wrongs. The actors look more as if they're simply waving their hands around in general martial arts movements instead of actually doing some martial arts. It's all "Look at me! I'm doing martial arts! Haha, what a joke!" Had the elements went along each movement, the special effects would have hidden at least some of these problems. The whole each move corresponding to a particular movement of an element was one of the things that had drawn me into the Avatar series in the first place. It had looked so cool and all the characters had seemed so graceful in the cartoon but here in the movie it was absolutely horrible. Apparently the special effects team had problems connecting the elements with the choreography.
With that being said, timing between movement and the special effects was extremely off. In the movie you see soldiers getting knocked back as a result of getting hit with a certain element, whether it be a whip of water or a stone the size of a dinner plate (Yes, I am going to keep making fun of that). Normally you'd think that the solider would fly back upon contact with the element but that's not what's happening in the movie. Instead, the soldiers are flying back several seconds BEFORE the element even hits them. Their falling back is also done in such a way that you know it's fake, that you know they're only being dragged back by a hidden rope. Or when the characters are blocking an attack, their hands come up BEFORE the attack even hits. This doesn't require any need to watch the movie over and over again to see. This problem with timing is extremely noticeable. Any fool is able to see it. Nor do see any of Aang's characteristic spheres of air he invented himself and which later becomes one of his chief sources of amusement and travel when he's not on Appa or using his hang glider.
The movie also does a bad job at connecting the scenes. When watching the movie, you don't feel like you're actually watching a continuous story. Instead you feel more as if you're watching a series of clips pasted together into a 103 minute movie. As a result, everything is disconnected and it's up to the characters to give a quick summarized narration of what just happened every few minutes or so. As a result, there's also no character development. One of the best things about the cartoon was the character development. You don't feel any developing relationship between Aang and Katara. Sokka and Yue also happen to fall instantly in love instead of some progress of friendship being shown as in the cartoon. You know nothing about the characters except that one is the Avatar, one is a Water bender, another is the Water bender's brother, and one is some sort of banished prince from the Fire Nation. Everyone just feels like they're cardboard cutouts. They're not living and breathing characters with their own unique personalities. Katara doesn't act like a caring mother and Sokka doesn't give any of his usual funny remarks.
Now it's time to comment on character appearances. The characters that actually look anything like their original cartoon counterparts are Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Yue. Iroh isn't old and fat at all. Instead he's a tall and average guy in his 40's that has dreadlocks. Dreadlocks, seriously? Why on earth are there dreadlocks? The cartoon Iroh is a wise old man who loves to drink tea. Often times he seems rather carefree about events. That is the Iroh we have known to love.The Iroh in the movie only drank tea once and shares perhaps only the wisdom. As for Prince Zuko, the scar on his left eye is barely visible. This shouldn't be the case considering that he was burned. The scar for Zuko is extremely important and has become one of his distinctive characteristics. At least make the scar more visible. Both Appa and Momo were digitally created ut they actually look quite creepy instead of being the cute animal friends they are. Momo only appeared once in the movie instead of sticking around. Apparently Sokka no longer fears the lemur-bat creature as he did in the cartoon.
This also leads me to noting that the cast happens to be predominantly white despite the cartoon being set in Asia. I have no actual problem with this but am just somewhat disappointed that they couldn't find actors who looked more like their cartoon counterparts. Rathbone actually looks pretty hot while playing Sokka--if only he did a better job at acting though. Sigh. Monk Gyasto is replaced by a black man in his thirties or forties instead of being played by an old man in his seventies or eighties. This choice is certainly interesting but it fits because it's quite evident just how kind Monk Gyasto is. Good job on the acting there (which is perhaps one of the few good acting in the movie). Azula, shown at the end of the movie, also appears to be white instead of Asian (I think the Fire Nation is based off of Japan) and she hardly looks proud or evil. Instead she looks more like a daughter who Fire Lord Ozai never cared about and finally had the chance to prove herself. She also looks extremely giddy and is someone who can't control her emotions. It should also be noted that several important characters such as Jet, Suki, and the rest of the Kyoshi warriors, are also missing from the movie.
Also, nothing is really being explained such as why Aang suddenly started glowing and creating a huge wall of water in the final battle. Several things were also changed such as Zuko suddenly deciding to follow Aang at the end of the movie. This, by all means, does not happen until several books later. When Yue dies in the movie, her hair simply turns black and she is later dragged out of the water. There seems to be nothing symbolic or special about her death. I could be wrong but I believe that her spirit is later shown ascending into heaven in the cartoon. But, then again, it's been several years since I last saw the cartoon so I really don't remember any of the details. Also, when General Zhao is about to kill the Moon Spirit, everyone else except Aang and Zuko are there. Yet they do nothing to try to stop Zhao from killing the Spirit. In the cartoon I believe that Zhao (if this character even existed in the cartoon) sneaked to the pool containing the Ocean and Moon Spirits in the midst of the battle and killed the Moon Spirit only for the rest of the gang to find out AFTER.
In the end, there are only about two things that deserve some credit in the movie. The first is the scenery used. A few of them were beautiful but most of them were just rocky landscapes that you can't really describe as "beautiful" apart from the openness in the background. The second is the soundtrack. I haven't really taken the chance to hear the actual soundtrack but the music in the movie so far sound okay. They're certainly not the best but they do pass the test. My favorite is perhaps the music that plays when Aang creates a huge wall of water of water in the battle between the Northern Water Tribe and the Fire Nation .
I realize that it's quite hard to fit an entire season of a cartoon series into one movie but the movie is still quite disappointing. Everything feels rushed only to have time to focus on the battle between the Northern Water Tribe and the Fire Nation. The other option would have been to prolong the movie but seeing how there are so many problems with the acting and the script I'm quite glad they didn't. Considering everything, this movie would have been even worse for people that have never watched Avatar before as they wouldn't understand a single thing in the movie. In fact, I'm surprised that this movie was even published considering how bad it was. It was perhaps one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life, Avatar fan or not, and that's really saying something. Did Shyamalan actually watch the series and tried to understand it or did he only glimpsed at it? If they do choose to do a sequel I really hope that they redo everything, from a new director to new actors and a new script. I rate this movie one out of five stars.
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Categories:
Aang,
Aasif Mandvi,
Avatar,
Cliff Curtis,
Dey Patel,
Iroh,
Jackson Rathbone,
Katara,
M. Night Shyamalan,
Nicola Petz,
Noah Ringer,
Shaun Toub,
Sokka,
The Last Airbender,
Zuko
