"Avatar: The Last Airbender" live-action movie

[aikiMac]

I love the cartoon. I watched the cartoon twice straight through, in chronological order. The movie, though -- disappointing.

The movie is about 100 minutes long and covers the "Water" book. To squish an entire season into such a length is admittedly hard, so I'm very willing to tolerate shortcuts and alterations. The movie tracks the first season in all its *essentials.*

The actor who plays Prince Zuko is great, and in fact his acting is the best part of the movie. Well, he and the bending. The bending is every bit as real as the bending on the cartoon -- which is to say, it's perfect.

But otherwise:
1) The dialogue is often painfully bad. Really bad. Groaning bad.

2) They're not doing good tai chi or bagua. On the cartoon the benders keep their backs straight and their heads up, and you can see their hips move. It's great. In the movie, however, Aang's back is bent, his shoulders are raised, his head is angled down at the ground most of the time, and his hips are not moving. The no-name people in the background had their heads up but didn't quite look right either. What's up with that?! Couldn't they use the same choreographer? Couldn't they get for a choreographer *anyone* who does tai chi or bagua?!?!

3) Sokka is not a joker. He's very serious all the time. Huh?

4) Their names are not pronounced the way they're pronounced on tv.

I can overlook the plot changes as compared to the tv version because it's impossible to squish the fullness of the Water season into a single movie, but I can't overlook these other shortcomings. I'll go so far as to say that if this movie had not been based on a very popular tv show, it probably would have gone straight to video. The script is that disappointing.

[Van Zandt]

Dev Patel, the fella who plays Prince Zuko, is a student of MAP's own StuartA.

But, yeah, film looks pants. Thanks for the review.

[Gary]

I haven't seen it so I probably shouldn't comment, but what was the casting like? I distinctly remember 'outrage' that the cast wasn't as asian as the cartoon was.

[pmosiun]

The movie was bad if you have seen the cartoon. It is okay if you have not seen it.

It seems that the director M Night study the wooden acting of Anakin from Star Wars and made everyone in the lead to copy him.

Every movie critic bring up on the race issue.

[aikiMac]

Dev Patel, the fella who plays Prince Zuko, is a student of MAP's own StuartA.
Well, it's a good thing that I praised him! :)

[righty]

I saw it recently too and agree on most counts.

I can't comment on the physical style of the bending as I know nothing about Chinese stylisms. But at times it did look a bit wrong. It could be that the body was not quite right or it didn't seem to match the bending.

Mostly I like the bending. What I didn't like was with the more powerful stuff it took a bit of a dance routine before anything started happening.

Sokka was horrible. They didn't have time to put in the wise cracks and he was casted as being older and so more serious. The acting was worse then the dude was in Twilight, and that's saying something. The script didn't do him any favours though.

[Hatamoto]

My biggest issue was that it wasn't fun, at all. Aang and Sokka are playful in the animated series and Sokka is comical when it comes time for posturing. In the movie Aang never really leaves his emotional stage until the end of the movie and Sokka is played totally straight. Very disappointing. Loved the bending, the scene early on where they're at the earthbending village was awesome, but the acting throughout was either noncommittal or ridiculously hammed up. Zuko's uncle whose name I forget was probably the only decent actor in the thing :p

[LeaFirebender]

movie sucked. End. :mad:

And i'm usually a benefit-of-the-doubt type of girl ...