Movie Review: The Last Airbender

Well first I have to set the stage. I'm a 42 year old father of three daughters. My two teenage daughters grew up watching Avatar on TV and loved the cartoon. They used to stay awake on Friday nights just to be able to watch this cartoon. As for myself, I know nothing about the story, or the cartoon so I can't compare it to the original.

That being said, it is safe to say that all of the reviews about how horrible this movie is, is true. I watched the movie and left confused about the characters, the plot and why things were happening the way they were. My daughters stated that they didn't even pronounce the names of the main characters correctly.

The story is about a little boy who is discovers in the ice kingdom in a large ice dome. He is in there with his pet flying, swimming, something (they never introduced this pet). It is discovered that he is the last of his kind and he can bend air (WOW!). But not only that, he is the Avatar, which is a special reincarnation and allows him to control other elements like fire, water, and earth. However, he is yet to develop these powers.

His mission is to get to another ice kingdom and learn to control water. The final battle is between him and the fire benders at this ice kingdom. The Avatar wins by making a giant wave and all of the fire kingdom's people get scared and they leave on their boats. Totally lame.

So how do these people control the elements? They do subpar kung fu style katas and this makes the elements move. The martial arts moves are pretty good actually, but nothing really exciting. The acting is awful making you wish it would end. The story line leaves you so confused you don't want to figure it out. You just wish for the movie to end.

My daughters, who loved the cartoon, hated the movie. Perhaps they were influenced by all of the bad reviews and perhaps they were biased towards the cartoon. But they stated there weren't minor differences between the cartoon and the movie, but major differences.

I cannot recommend this movie even if it was free on TV to watch. I honestly wished I had those two hours back in my life that I wasn't watching this garbage.