2.0
out of 100
Metascore®Generally unfavorable reviews Based on a weighted average of all critic review scores.
A sample of reviews from critics across the country.
He hasn't mastered the craft yet, but M. Night Shyamalan may be on to something with this action-movie thing.
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The movie is "Star Wars" with martial arts, plus a touch of "The Last Emperor." Technically, it's not badly done; I enjoyed the physical clash of elements, the water balls rising like sculpture in the air.
Airbender, whether intentionally or not, is pegged almost exclusively to a small-fry state of mind.
Even during the climax, the film still is struggling to introduce the world of the film and its strange rules.
This is all enormously disappointing, of course, since the best we could hope for from a live-action "Avatar" adaptation is the mind-blowing equivalent of our first encounters with wire-fu, rather than this cartoony nonsense.
The problem -- the catastrophe -- of The Last Airbender is not in the conception but the execution. The long-winded explanations and clumsy performances are made worse by graceless effects and a last-minute 3-D conversion that wrecks whatever visual grace or beauty might have been there.
The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented.
The filmmaker has delivered yet another iteration of what has become a classic M. Night Shyamalan film, only much bigger than before, and, as a consequence, mind-bendingly turgid.
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Movies.com Critic
Let's hope it's the last.
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Edward Leafblower-Hands to the rescue.
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