The Last Airbender Review

[cybereality]

So over this weekend I went to see The Last Airbender. I saw the reviews before going, they said it was a crap movie and the 3d was flat. But I am a sucker for 3D so I had to do it. Sadly, it was as bad as people said. The movie itself was just ok. The acting was sub-par but at least the effects were good (for a 2D flick). But then again, what was the last movie with bad special effects? The film was clearly made for kids, unlike other "kids" movies like Toy Story that can be appreciated by all ages. But it was at least entertaining, I guess. The movie basically follows this girl who can "bend" (or control) water and her brother. They quickly find a young kid, the avatar, who is the last air-bender. Then they spend the rest of the film being chased by the bad guys, predictably the fire clan, who eventual catch up to them for a big fight scene at the end. Pretty standard affair, nothing special. For M. Night Shalyman I was disappointed. He just flushed his career down the tubes.

However the main draw for me was the 3D and it did NOT deliver. First off, this was another 2D conversion like Alice and Wonderland or Clash of the Titans. And between those two the movie was a lot closer to Clash of The Titans in terms of quality. Most of the movie was just plain flat. There were scenes that I swear were just 2D and even taking off the glasses there was not much difference. A couple of shots had some alright 3D effects but still nothing special (maybe 3 or 4 shots total had even a decent 3D quality). Most of the movie was in this pseudo-3d that had more depth than 2D but seems very rudimentary. Like they would bring the characters out a little bit or large objects, like a boat, but they lost all the little details. Especially in the city scenes with lots of people there was almost no 3D. I'd still say Clash of the Titans was worse, but this is down there pretty low. I knew it was a bad conversion going into it and I was still disappointed. Steer clear.

On a side-note I really don't like this trend on converting 2D productions to 3D after the fact (and doing a bad job at that). People are going to see these movies and may not be familiar with 3D and get the wrong impression. When done like this I will admit that the 3D is a gimmick. Meaning that the only reason to have 3D was to raise the ticket-price and bring in suckers like me. It didn't actually add anything artistic to the film. So this is a dangerous trend. If it continues it could kill 3D. People are just going to get fed up with sub-par quality and probably don't realize its a conversion. So I am not even sure I am comfortable supporting a movie like this, but I am holding out for a good conversion (please, Star Wars).

[android78]

Thanks for the warning.
After being excited about this movie since the trailer was released months ago , I was saddened to see the reviews getting 1 star out of 10. Now I may consider watching it if it is on the TV, nothing I'd pay for.
I think the studio should have been smarter and released it worldwide on the same day to lure in more suckers. In Australia, it's not released until September! I wonder which cinemas will be suckers enough to screen it?