The Last Airbender

I'm sure DA is about to get flooded with movie reviews, so this is mine.

Bottomline on top:
"Bah".

If interested, keep reading.

OK the movie was not totally totally bad, but I still give it a thumbs down.
Too many child actors that needed more acting practice,
but I really won't hold this against the film because I was expecting that anyway.
I have always disliked kid actors in movies....with only a few exceptions.
(GOONIES never say die!)
Anyway, almost everything about the film comes off as boring and kind of bland.
No doubt because fans like myself who are familiar with the TV show pretty much remember everything in it.
And too much of the movie was almost a scene for scene remake of  the TV show,
which we've all seen repeatedly.
Seriously....Mr. Shyamalan could have clipped this movie together from the actual TV show.

I'm sure a lot of people will be complaining about the actor's acting in this movie, but I really didn't have a big problem with that.
Again, because I was expecting it.
(how many child actors do you REALLY REALLY like right now, at this stage in their careers?)
But this whole show was always about the adventures of these kids.
A lot of dialog was corny, but hey.....
IT'S BASED ON A CARTOON
corny gags and lines actually do work....in an animated cartoon, but not so much in a live action movie.

I think there was something like this in Stars Wars.
I'm not sure if it was Carrie Fisher or Harrison Ford, but somebody said something like:
"You can write this ****, but you can't recite it/say it/act it"
about some of the lines in Star Wars

The cast was fine with me, it was the movie's writing that was off.
The movie has almost none of the slapstick comedy.
There were only 2 incidents of this and both of them were the same gag of Katara accidently waterbending Sokka.
The audience I was in were actually laughing at all the unintentional comedy found throughout.
Mostly with the corny lines/dialog delivery.

The movie (unsuccessfully) squished the 1st 20 episodes into a 2 hour movie
I'm sure Mr. Shyamalan did this to "stay faithful" to the original, but this did not work for a movie.
Katsuhiro Otomo successfully squished 8 years of his manga AKIRA into a really good 2 hour (animated) movie.
(Arrggh, I here a live action "AKIRA" is in the works too).
Tatsunoko Production also successfully squished several episodes of Macross into  the (also animated) film Macross: Do You Remember Love?
Mr. Shyamalan should have tried to do it this way, but might have been afraid of fan backlash.
(He's gonna get that now)
Events from the TV show moved too fast here and didn't mesh well in the movie.
If fans like us were not already familiar with the cartoon, it would have been even more obvious.
People who have never seen the TV will probably be scratching their heads.
(Hmmmm.....I think I'll take my mom and dad to see the movie as an experiment and get their take on it).

This movie DID NOT have to follow the TV show THIS closely.

Appa an Momo were GREAT.....except that they had almost no screen time.
Mr. Shyamalan forgot that they are characters too.
but again...20 episodes into a 2 hour movie....he had to cut down a lot.

The best thing about this movie was the "world".
My praise to Mr. Shyamalan for getting the Avatar world perfect.
If anything, go see the movie for the environments.

In regards to the racism issue raised during production,
I didn't really care what race the characters were so long as they looked more or less like their cartoon counterparts.
This is something that the movie DID do good.
There are multiple races in the movie:
White people make up the Water tribes.....with a few Inuits shown in the background.
(Hey King Theoden was Master Pakku)
Asian people make up the Earth benders
Multi-brown people (yeesh can I  say that?) make up the Fire Nation.
And Mutlicolored/all races made up the Air Nomads.
(I guess the nomads really do get around and pick members where ever they might be found).

The fight scenes were good, but not like the spectacle of other martial arts films.
Examples:
Neo Vs "Various"...The Matrix
Li Mu Bai Vs Jen......Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Darth Maul Vs Quogon Jinn and Obiwan....SW episode 1
Bruce Lee Vs Han.....Enter the Dragon.
Lui Kang Vs Reptile, Vs SudZero, and Jonny Cage Vs. Scorpion....Mortal Kombat
etc, ect, ect.
These fights I always like to rewind and watch over and over.
Actually I do the same with various fight scenes.......from the Avatar TV show
Fight choreography was fine, but the fight cinematography needed to be tweaked,
because the fights scenes really lacked that "Umf" in it.
With a couple of exceptions.

I would much rather have seen a totally new Avatar ANIMATED movie be made 'ala "Cowboy Bebop: The Movie", or heck even "The Powerpuff Girls Movie".
Although I was satisfied with the TV show ending, there were still a few unresolved issues that I think could be dealt with in a new movie or at least a DTV one-shot OVA type of production.

Alas

If you still want to go see this movie then I recommend that you save some money by going to the bargain priced matinee,
AND
see it in cheaper 2D.
The 3D really was just tacked on and does not make the film a better experience.