The Last Airbender
Metascore
20 out of 100

Generally unfavorable reviews - based on 33 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 33
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 33
  3. Negative: 23 out of 33
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  1. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    38
    The Last Airbender (they couldn't use the series' "Avatar" title because another film got there first, without all the bending) is more about marshaling extras and interpolating tons of computer-generated effects and keeping the factions straight. It's a tough sit.
  2. St. Louis Post-Dispatch
    Reviewed by: Joe Williams
    38
    A toxic potion that will put children to sleep and kill his (M. Night Shyamalan) career.
  3. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Kirk Honeycutt
    30
    Even during the climax, the film still is struggling to introduce the world of the film and its strange rules.
  4. Arizona Republic
    Reviewed by: Bill Goodykoontz
    30
    While the special effects are impressive enough, M. Night Shyamalan's film doesn't make a lick of sense.
  5. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    30
    It's a little bit Tolkien, a little bit Lucas, a little bit "Matrix," a little bit "Dune" and rather too much Philip Pullman, all stuck together with some powerfully expensive effects and lots of cute kids doing tai chi.
  6. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    25
    Shyamalan takes the beloved Nickelodeon anime series -- the full title was Avatar: The Last Airbender -- and turns it into 103 minutes of overproduced, stilted nonsense.
  7. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Michael O'Sullivan
    25
    Playing a hero who's meant to be something akin to the young Dalai Lama, Ringer brings less than zero gravitas to the role. He makes the kid who plays Gibby on "iCarly" look like Sir Laurence Olivier.
  8. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    25
    The Last Airbender' is dreadful, an incomprehensible fantasy-action epic that makes the 2007 film "The Golden Compass,'' a similarly botched adaptation of a beloved property from another medium, look like a four-star classic.
    All this critic's reviews
  9. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    25
    The Last Airbender is an insult to anyone with a triple-digit I.Q. and a willingness to use it inside the confines of a movie theater. This is bad filmmaking and bad storytelling. It also sounds what should be the death knell to M. Night Shyamalan's career.
  10. Orlando Sentinel
    Reviewed by: Roger Moore
    25
    This colossal folly, the fiasco of the summer of 2010 - gives us all a ringside seat at the sight of Mr. "I See Dead People's" career gurgling down the drain.
  11. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    25
    The Last Airbender is like a Care Bears movie that got waylaid in the fourth dimension. It's insufferably silly.
  12. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Joe Neumaier
    20
    Unfortunately, its positive attributes are thrown out of balance by its abundant negatives - including chintzy effects, lumbering storytelling and an overstylized, earnest incompetence that evokes "Speed Racer."
  13. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    20
    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.
  14. Variety
    Reviewed by: Peter Debruge
    20
    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.
  15. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Cliff Doerksen
    20
    The current national priorities should be as follows: reduce carbon emissions and stop funding the films of M. Night Shyamalan.
  16. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    12
    The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented.
  17. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Robert Wilonsky
    10
    This is one muddled attempt at franchise making: confusing, drab, sluggish. (Ugly, too, if you're forced to see it in 3-D.)
  18. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    0
    If M. Night Shyamalan sold his soul to the devil for the success of "The Sixth Sense," I think His Satanic Majesty has finally collected in full with The Last Airbender.
  19. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    0
    A dull, boring, poorly acted, limply written and thoroughly unappealing fantasy, featuring bland characters locked in a struggle of no interest.
  20. Tampa Bay Times
    Reviewed by: Steve Persall
    0
    The Last Airbender makes the cartoon version with its ratchet-jawed characters and clunky animation seem like a Pixar classic.
  21. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    0
    Surely the worst botch of a fantasy epic.
  22. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    0
    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.
  23. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Keith Phipps
    0
    The Last Airbender isn't that much different from the rest of this summer's generally dire multiplex fare-from "The A-Team" to "Jonah Hex"... But it is remarkable in one respect: It's the worst of them.

User Reviews

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User Score
2.9 out of 10

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 505 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 63 out of 252
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 252
  3. Negative: 177 out of 252
  1. grandpajoe6191
    2
    "The Last Airbender", a movie based on the famous TV series for kids, is just simply terrible. The story doesn't make any sense and is chopped into crude pieces. The acting and special effects are terribly illustrated like coloring black ink over a well-done portrait of someone. Man, all I can conclude is RAZZIE BUZZ!!… Full Review »
  2. Kenny
    3
    The movie's effects were awesome, but everything else could have been better. The characters' dialogue was very awkward and lacking that certain feel. I watched some of the cartoon episodes and Aang's character was portrayed differently in the film. Aang, as I recall, was quite carefree and had fun in the cartoon. In the film, however, Aang is very serious and I don't think he smiled once throughout the film. The story did not have good transitions. I mean I could follow what is occurring, but again it could have been better. I was very bored during the film probably because I did not really care for the characters. My friend who had wanted to see the film fell asleep and so did the person sitting on my other side in theaters. Again, the only parts of the film I enjoyed was the effects.… Full Review »
  3. DaveC
    2
    I have to hand it to M. Night, he is THE most consistent director in Hollywood... Every film he makes is consistently worse then the last! Check out all his movies on metacritic: 64, 62, 59, 44, 36, 34, 20... in that order!… Full Review »
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