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.… Expand

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!

I feel sad when I read that M. Night actually has children and they watched the series together. He has just managed to destroy the series with a single blow.

"Last Airbender was such a rushed messed , it goes to quickly tho the action scenes were pretty neat , it could not save , these terrible performances , Awful script , and Laughable Dialogue ,One of the worst films released this year" .. F

Great visuals. Decent Story. Horrible dialogue! I would say take the risk just to see the visuals and be submerged in this world but I can't just because the dialogue (and maybe the acting?) is just that bad. There's no justification for the horrible dialogue given how clever, witty, and funny the animated series is. So disappointed.

This film is easily one of the worst films in the decade and should never had been made by someone who works with suspense movies! I give this awful film a 2% of a good movie due to its okay visual effects.

Whatever thread of similarity this movie had with the wonderful cartoon series I had fallen in love with was broken by stilted dialogue, incomprehensible storyline, and useless graphics. Don't watch this. It will break a fan's heart, and it will only confuse the uninitiated.

M. Night has taken one of the best story lines and ruined it. Mispronouncing names, choosing kids who CAN'T act, and failing to develop the characters, has proven that he no longer knows what he is doing. Unless you have seen the series, you will have no idea what is going on. I have seen the series and I spent the entire movie filling in the gaps in my head. Someone else needs to take this project over and remake the first one. Poor form M. Night.… Expand

Felt like the Dragon Ball Z movie, remixed with modern effects.

This movie is so horrible that it considered a bad movie! The Last Airbender is hateful movie that the Avatar fans will discover that this pile of diarhea will be hated this movie and it;s nothing based on the hit series on Nickelodeon,it's almost as bad as Dragonball Evolution! I'M NOT KIDDING! The cast was so bad,they even have a laughable dialogue and they sorted suck when they speak like Jake Loyd in Star Wars,Episode I. The characters are again NOT so suppose to be white,it's suppose to be asain!The story is horrendous and the visual effects looks good,but where's the movie lead to you for any bad dialogue what they said. The fight scenes are ripping off in any movies like The Matrix,Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon,and many more martial arts films that they put on and I'm so shame that M. Night Shyamalan did this movie so bad that it's even more bad like The Happening! What go wrong about this movie,even children will discover that they like,but please I guess this movie wouldn't get any good like this.… Expand

It seems like this film might end up as the next Battlefield Earth. Battlefield Earth, which was released at the beginning of the last decade, went on to be the worst film of that decade. The Last Airbender, which was released at the beginning of this decade, WILL be the worst film of the decade.

The only reason this movie gets a 2 is because of the speical effects. It doesn't show the good and evil in Zuko, it has poor acting, to many movements before any bending is done (you could get smacked in the face before ang can use any air attacks) and how can Indians be portrayed as the bad guys ? Indians are not evil enough, nor strong. Bad casting, bad scripting and bad acting with good speical effect doesn't make for a good movie… Expand

I believe Shyamalan should stop doing films, the acting was something more than bad and the dialogs is not meant for peoples brain, I'm starting believe the sixth sense is not he's film

Horrible directing.

I typically trust Ebert, Travers, and others here who awarded this film such scathing reviews. But for some reason I still felt the need to see this movie, thinking that these critics were sometimes subject to harsh overstatement. Unfortunately, this movie was unfathomably bad, and one of the worst films I've seen since 10,000 BC. Do not waste your money on this. The more who do, the more likely it is that the studio will let him make a follow-up, and that is something that nobody wants.… Expand

M. Night is best at original not putting his artistic spin on an adaption. He white-washed the whole cast not one other leading actors were Asian. Why was Dev Pevel casted let alone considered he doesn't look nothing like prince zuko and didn't attempt to what happen to the hair cut what happen to the burn over his eye. If they do still make chapter two in to a movie I hope it's re-casted w/ possibly with a new director otherwise it's already lost me as a fan!… Expand

Needless to say, as a fan of the cartoon, I was deeply disappointed. The movie felt rushed & peiced together,there was no character development, the dialouge was horrible, and the acting was literally laughable. I do not understand how M.Knight can take something that was handed to him a a silver platter and mess it up so badly. There is just no reason for this.

everything fun or heartwarming or joyful was bleached, wrung, beaten on a rock and then hung out in the breeze. And then it rained and a volcano erupted and all the ash stuck on. This is the in-flight movie they play on that handbasket to Hell.

Poorly written, rushed plot, horrible dialog, painful acting, amazing effects, ok fight scenes. The "benders" took way to long to get the elements moving. Watch the cartoon series and skip this disaster.

"The Last Airbender" places an almost unprecedented burden on fanboys and casual moviegoers alike to ignore its terrible acting and dialogue, its simultaneously forced and incomprehensible plot, its horrendous editing and camerawork, and its dull and uninteresting characters in order to enjoy this would-be epic. Good luck, and may this be the last movie that M. Night Shyamalan ever makes.

Shyamalan tries to gain an audience with a movie that is off of an already successful story. But this doesnt do the show justice at all. As a huge, and I mean huge, fan of the series, this was a big let down. But I'll use the pros and cons method to express my feelings. Pros: Action, Effects. Cons: Laughable Dialogue, Bad Acting (for the most part, Dev Patel did great), Name Changes, Takes itself way too seriously (they're kids, why aren't they having fun? no comedic relief?), Jasper ruined my favorite character of the series. and what gets me angry is that people will think the series is bad. It is not. so overrall, this movie is bad. and it's hard that it's from the guy who directed and wrote The Sixth Sense.… Expand

Good intentions, BAD results. As everybody knows, every movie based on a video-game (Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, KOF, etc) or animated series (Dragon Ball: Evolution, The Last Airbender, etc) is a total waste of money. Personally, I'd prefer the crappy animated 3D versions than the Live-action movies.

The collapse of the M. Night Shyamalan project called "The Last Airbender" was previewed since the movie trailers. And be honest, if you'll make a movie based in an awarded cartoon like Avatar: The Legend of Aang, the very first thing to do (as an advice) is to respect the originality of the series, books or video games that you're planning to make. Mr. Shyamalan is a good director but he needs co-work with the nickelodeon producers or a bunch of fans of this animated series.

Greetings.… Expand

No surprise the movie sucked given the director at the helm. What is most criminal and continues to be Hollywood's most befuddling mystery: why/how M. Night continues to get projects (to destroy). My kids were doubly disappointed, first by the movie being simply so bad, but second -- and more importantly -- their expectations were crushed given their sheer enjoyment for the animated series. They had such high hopes, and yet I kept warning them that M. Night directing was a very bad sign, he's ruined one movie after another. Daddy was right again.… Expand

My 4 year old loved only as a 4 year old could. Now me as the grown-up I was highly disappointed. I knew that taking such a rich tapistry such as Avatar:The Last Airbender and adapting it for the silverscreen would be a challege. But M. Night gets a big F in writing. First he screws up the entire sub-plot of the series, which is the love story of Aang and Kateria which is one of the most endearing parts of the series. Secondly he ignores important foreshaddowing senerios, and dismisses entire major charatcters. Did anyone else miss the Keoshi warriors or Jung Jung? Both which are important elements the later books. The relationship between Zuko, and Iroh was underdeveloped. And last but not least the timeing of important dioglouge was misplaced. On the good visually the movie (in 2D) was well done, and the costumes were correct. The biggest mistake was letting M. Night write the adaption. A well written story can keep an audience in there seats and interested for .3 or 4 hours at a time, Think of Gahndi, or Lawerance of Arabia. Unfortantely, he tried to put a Persian Miniature on a postage stamp, and failed in his effort. Should the series be continued I recommend letting the orginator write the screen adaption.… Collapse

Wow, after seeing this film, "Jonah Hex" is like a work of art in comparison. $10 says this wins the worst movie award at the Golden Razzies this year. They can retitle the film "The Last Movie M. Knight Will Ever be Allowed to Make.".

Being a huge Avatar fan, I knew that M. Night would need a miracle after seeing the preview in which the main character is a 6 year old, no one else looks anything like what they did in the show, and the fire nation had been transformed into India. The actual movie followed suit, mispronouncing and misrepresenting almost everything I held dear about Avatar: The Last Airbender.

I'm personally boycotting the movie "The Last Airbender". Care to join me anyone? The reason? This morning as I search for movies to see with my kids this weekend, "The Last Airbender" seems like a good choice, but then as I see the casting of actors I'm pissed. An asian theme animated show has made into an ALL white actors movie. Hollywood happened to bypass all talented asian actors!!!. A racist movie. Most of you know that I'm a moive lover, so are my kids and some of you. But this "Last Airbender" has become my last gasp of Airsucker. Feel like being push over, Kenneth… Expand

This is the worst adaptation of the wonderful film series I have EVER seen. They changed the names, the storyline (completely) and the acting is horrible! Don't see this movie! We cannot support this atrocious adaptation. Every thing is choppy, nothing makes sense, it assumes you have already seen the series. Don't watch. Trust me, if I ate popcorn during the movie, I would';ve thrown up.… Expand

Production was okay. The effects were alright. But the dialog was just awful....every bit of conversation was so awkward, and poorly written! I was cringing inside whenever anyone said anything. The story felt ridiculously rushed I'm pretty sure anyone who hasn't seen the show will be incredibly lost. You do get an idea about the plot, but only through awkward, terrible, forced lines that are....just the worst. I'm rating The Last Airbender a 1, simply for the novelty of the effects and seeing "Ong," "Soaka," and the rest of the gang in live action. I WAS BETRAYED!… Expand

About the only positive thing I can say about the movie is that, visually, they stayed true to the original cartoon series. Otherwise, this was just a trainwreck! Bad acting, bad script, bad editing, bad fight choreography! Avoid this movie and stick with the far superior animated series!

This movie was by far the worst thing i have seen in my life. Horrible acting. No character development. I cant even describe how distorted the story itself was. Save your money and watch the TV series. Don't even bother seeing it in 3D either if you do decide to see it.

Wow, I'm giving this movie a 1 just because the special effects were good, other than that this movie was horrible. I am a huge fan of the animated series and waited a freaking year for this movie to come out and now that it finally has i wish it would have never even happened. The music was good but in the wrong parts the acting was horrible the names weren't even right, the movie just didn't make sense and jumped from scene to scene. I should have known M.K.S would have destroyed this movie, and to top it all off it didn't even have a twist.… Expand

I'm so pissed with Shyamalan. How could he butcher one of the best cartoons of the past decade? There should be a restraining order against him-he can't be within 5 feet of any film studio because almost everything he does turns out to be horrendous egotistic garbage devoid of any emphasis on trying to tell a good story, just trying to tell HIS story. I mean. the series' had amazing story telling potential, which should leave little room for messing up, from the horrible casting to the sloppy 3D....fans of the cartoon are most likely going to be super pissed.… Expand

This movie was hilariously awful. Almost worth seeing just to laugh at. Almost.

Just horrible.

This movie was a travesty in comparison with the original animated series. Endless streams of exposition (sometimes repeated again in a "voice-over flashback"), wooden, wooden dialogue, and nonexistent 3D. The movie also takes the animated series' progressive handling of gender and race issues and skewers it. Every villain in the movie is a person of color. Every heroic character with a name is white. Every person of color who does a heroic action--aside from Iroh--needs inspiration from a white character before he can take action. In the movie, a woman never gets to show herself the equal or better of a man in any act that both are capable of doing. And adding a CGI dragon and three 3D CGI dewbacks did nothing to cover the massive amounts of boring exposition, genderfail, and racefail.… Expand

Your money would be better spent on highly addictive, life threatening drugs, they would do less damage to your intelligence and self-esteem. Terrible movie, and a failure in every imaginable way.

The movie was nothing like the cartoon. It left out important details and moved to fast for the viewers. For the people who never seen the cartoon will really be lost to what's going on. Also there is no reason why this should be a 3D movie, there were no special effect...M. Night Shyamalan missed the mark on this one.

Awful, and not helped by the amount of people troling. Collin M. - youz trollin. And I take my hat off to you.

They pronounced all the names wrong and it was terrible.

Incredibly frustrating and inexplicable debasement of simply wonderful source material.

But the series was so good, how could this happen.

Being a huge fan of the animated series on Nickelodeon, I was skeptical when I heard that that a live action movie was in the works, and it seems my skepticism was well placed. Everything I loved about the animation was missing in this film, most notably the personalities of the characters. Where the television cartoon had wonderful character, in this movie they might as well have all been zombies. Horrible acting, overworked dialog and for a movie that was supposedly 3-D, only about 5% of it was visibly so. I had to keep taking off my glasses to see the diffference and honestly it was hard to tell then too... This was the first book in four if they follow the animated program. I won't bother with the other 3 films. I wish now I spent the money to check out 'The Karate Kid' instead.… Expand

The Last Airbender is what you might call "a movie you must see because it was an awesome tv show" don't some people realize that most cartoon adaptations don't work? Obviously this one didn't, because of its poorly constructed plot, poor acting, and racism.

In my opinion, this movie is a polished turd. The polishing is the neat look. But if you polish a turd, its still a smelly turd. I can't believe how bad M. Night screwed up. He was good years ago, but now he sucks. If he just directed it and didn't write it, it would be good. But his writing really sucks! Its like a two-year old wrote it!! Im a huge fan of the show, and M.Night's writing really screwed it. First, whats with the wrong pronounciation!! Second, the writing is so rushed that they don't have room for any little millimeter of soul or heart. Finally, there's horrible acting, laughable dialouge, bad 3-D, and dissapointing action. Whether you're a fan of the show or not, skip this movie!!!… Expand

Couldn't even sit through it. Just plain terrible. It's disappointing to me especially because the cartoon was so good. Way to ruin it. I didn't think something so bad could be made from this.

ive never seen the cartoon show and didnt even know about it till a year ago and still havent and after seeing this film i doubt i will ever want to. the tv show im sure is better but this film left such a bad taste for this series. well the worst thing about this film is the acting it feels like a middle school play and i feel like thats almost giving this film praise saying that. the worst of it is from the 3 kids whos acting is so bad in this you can bet they will never do films again and if they are lucky may appear on some crappy sci fi channel film or on life time . the plot is poorly told the charicters are about as intresting as waching grass grow . the only good thing this film has is lush back grounds and visaul effects . the fighting is laughable with every one dancing around like abunch of retards trying to hump a door knob. M night shamallamadingdong one again proves he's a **** director and some how got lucky with the 6th sense and unbreakable.. probubly because he had good actors to carry his sorry ass. evade this film like its got herpese.… Expand

I'm being more than a little generous. The movie is the logical extreme of what movies like Avatar have wrought. Excellent aesthetics, absolutely atrocious acting. The movie is a butchering of the cartoon, with horrible, awkward dialogue, a plot consisting mostly of exposition, and flat characters with very little to like.
The sad thing is that the cartoon is one of the best written and intelligent children's shows in recent memory, yet it gets adapted into a horrific film. If you like the cartoon, watch it for a laugh. If you never watched the cartoon, keep this movie off your list.… Expand

Poor M. Night, his carrear as one of the best directors of our time is falling like a shooted duck. The Last Aribender is bad. Bad as the hopes of that duck. The acting is outrageous bad, the story is depressing awful written, the 3D is inexistent and the plot is nothing more then ridiculous. The visuals are alright thou, but tiring and inexpressive. So, save your money or if you really want to give a try, go see it in 2D, doesn't make any difference.… Expand

I went to see this movie with my friends and it was completely different than any of our expectations. The character's dialog was really wierd and the only good part of the movie were the effects. The story was very boring and was not worth the $12

Right after Enemy Mine, this is second worst movie I've ever seen. Hell, this is the second worst thing I've ever seen. Film students should study this film just so they can learn what not to do. That isn't an exaggeration. I hope people in VFS and TFS study this and that way at least this movie does some good.

I can only hope that this will be the last The Last Airbender movie we ever see from M. Night.… Expand

I'm an idiot. Getting fooled in because I am such a fan of the cartoon. This is one of the worst films I have ever seen in my life. Alienating, boring, effortless and lifeless which by any means never do any justice to the cartoon show. The acting and dialogue is horrendous, the editing is awkward, the characters are boring, being badly written, the script is pathetic and the plot is completely rushed. Avoid it. It sucks.… Expand

I guess you cant expect anything less from M Night Shayamalan, whos movies continue to get even worse as his carreer moves along. I dont think that he should quit the movie biz, i just think he should stop writting and directing movies peroid!

Wrong score on first review oops
If you are unfamiliar with the movies source material, the Animate series of a similar name this movie will have little to offer you ; If you are familliar or even a fan however, it will have plenty to offer, unfortunately all of it's offerings are bad. First off, I do want to give an honorable acknowledgement to the special effects in the move as well as trying to stay somewhat close to the story, one can understand that sacrifices have to be made to take a full season of a series into a one sitting movie timeframe. What kills the movie however is the acting, Bad diologue bad choreography, just about every name is mispronounced which to an extent is understandable perhaps if the source is either in a foreign language or a book but not if the source is in the movies originating language and has already established such things. Also the story is very shallow and some scenes such as a segment where the main character and their friend are practicing water bending stances (based off of tai chi) you can tell that they are supposed to be in sync with each other but are fare from it. All in all, at best this movie could be accepted as a very well done fan movie done by a third party with some of the best special effects programs available to the public, but when one considers that this is published and backed by major production companies, all of this films shortcomings are unacceptable. I find it to be hard to believe that this movie can leave a positive impression on any viewer, fan or not… Expand

This movie could have been good, but it leaves out waaayyy too much of the story, so there was no way to develop the characters as well as the plot jumps around, plus the acting is only so-so. If they had another hour or two, they could have patched something together that made sense, and if you haven't seen the series, you'll have no clue what's going on. The kid they chose for Ang wasn't bad, though, and the special effects were pretty decent. If you've watched the cartoon series and you're a fan, you're better off skipping this. I take that back - it's probably a good idea for everyone to skip this!… Expand

I like watching the series on Nickelodeon but this movie was just so boring and I know it wasn't to long but it felt like it. I hope that if they make a sequel is better than the first one.

Such an amazing series that has been denigrated into such an overblown poorly directly heap of rubbish. I just hope that the creators of the original Avatar series (Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko) never watch this as it would make me cry seeing something that was so great be destroyed by frankly, a pretty crappy film maker. Watch at your own peril as it will make you want to scream, not with delight and joy, but pure pain and frustration!… Expand

Do they hire people to give this movie a score of above 0? I thought Dragonball Evolution was brutal, but its actually not that bad compared to this POS.

It is really depressing that something like this could have come out of such enjoyable source material. There is good intent, but that is about it. Save yourself some time and watch that.

Wow M. Night really messed up on this one. I saw no parts similar to the series in the movie. Oh and that wall of water was like the worlds biggest psych out! Hope they don't do book two.

TNot only considered the worst adaptation of a cartoon series, b ut also the worst martial arts film ever. Not only is it a butchering for fans but also non-fans will find not only everything wrong but also a poo man's recap of the first season. The dialogue is dumb, the acting is unwhelming, the 3D is a joke. Not to mention that its getting a sequel of a planned trilogy.

While I respect M. Shyamalan's talents, I've got to say this is the worst film of 2010 (I bet nothing will top it). It will win the Razzie Awards, but its box office is so huge that they are going to make a sequel! No need for a big review. While the effects are quite good, I hated the acting and everything else about it. This is just like a Disney TV show with good effects. It is nowhere good enough to be in the big screen, yet people still come to check it out. The Last Airbender is by the far worst film of the decade and M. Shyamalan is the worst director of the decade for creating this film.… Expand

Has M. Night Shyamalan done it again? No, no he hasn't. Or actually if I look at it from a different point of view, maybe I can say that he has done it again. Based off of his last few movies, which were huge disappointments, The Last Airbender certainly followed suit. With a spectacular trailer and a well-written cartoon series to back it up, it was sad to see that the great storyteller, Shyamalan, did a horrible job at telling the story of The Last Airbender.

Read full review at FlicksWorthWatching.com… Expand

Wow, poor acting, worse dialogue just an overall terrible film. The movie had a TON of potential, yet it lacked just about anything to make it worthy outside of it's concept. Whoever casted and wrote the dialogue in the film should be shot. They made Hayden Christianson(Anakin Skywalker) look smooth in speech.

awful. he changes it from the original awesome series to this shamalayandingdong piece of #$@. stays tru to the series very few times. i hope he will not disgrace the awesome series by nmaking another piece of crap movie.

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. After watching this movie i can now say that M. night shama-whatever should quit making movies. it is truly that awful. I'm a huge fan of the avatar series, and before watching it i knew it would be bad, but what i didn't think it would be this bad. for one thing they misrepresented the intentions of the fire nation when they started the war. the Kioshi warriors were completely absent from the movie. none of the character really felt like they should, they included the blue spirit (a character established in the third book), and the fire benders couldn't make fire from their chi like they could in the cartoon. instead they had to bend an existing flame. for the normal viewer who wouldn't care abut these or notice, the movie still has horrible pacing and dialog, the original series had wonderful and very natural dialog but the movies dialog is awkward and poorly paced. the acting was also awe full because half the time the actors seemed uninterested and the rest of the time they were just standing awkwardly. especially the fire bender soldiers, they would just stand around awkwardly attacking the air until it was their turn to get there butt kicked by one of the protagonists. so if your a fan don't expect any sort of fan fair, or general accuracy. if you have never watched the show then you may sightly enjoy the movie however even if it was disconnected from the Avatar franchise, its still not a good movie. in all if you think you might be interested in the Avatar series go rent the DVD's.… Expand

The Last Airbender is all eye candy and has no heart like the Nickelodeon cartoon it is based upon. The only thing really going for is the somewhat decent visual effects used for the action and bending effects. Other than that, the story is dull, the dialogue is uninspiring, and the acting is utterly atrocious. If the visual effects were not decent, this film could have been a lot worse. This is by far the worst film M. Night Shyamalan has ever made.… Expand

With an incomprehensible plot, laughable dialog, poor actors, and flat action sequences, The Last Airbender is a mockery of the original cult TV series and one of the worst blockbusters of 2010.

Okay, how do I put this........THIS IS ONE OF THE WORST MOVIES EVER!!!! Don't watch this. This is a disgrace to the TV show. The special effects are great, but the dialouge is laughable and the acting is wooden. Do NOT watch this. I hope Noah Ringer is better in Cowboys vs Aliens than he was in this. People often ask, "What went wrong" about this movie. A better question is: What DIDN'T go wrong?

The TV series are pretty good, but this film is total **** The Last Airbender has to be one of the worst films ever created so far. The movie was rushed and the script was crap. My score: 21/100

Beyond terrible. Worse than any movie I've ever seen. This was a make or break for whether I would watch any more M. Night movies and boy did he break it. As a huge fan of the original series (I even went dressed up in a home made Water Nation costume), I am in constant disgust of what he did with this movie. When it ended, my entire theater was literally booing and screaming. When Shyamalan's name came up for the end credits many profanities were yelled. By far the greatest aspect of the movie, the visuals, still weren't even THAT impressive. If I could give it below a 0, I would.… Expand

It was done like he didn't care about the characters and their personalities, and as if pretty graphics with no attention to detail or development = translating an amazing story to the big screen. It was like he watched the series for 10 minutes, cut all the story and left all the "cool looking" parts.

This movie was unthrilling and just completely horrible.

A terrible script intensified by the abysmal acting destroys this already lackluster action film.

This is one of my favorite series and M. Knight completely ruined it. I was so excited to hear that they have turned this show into a movie. All great expectations went down the drain during the movie. Even the creators of the show pronounced the characters names correctly, so why is it that they changed it? It sounds so stupid. If you have never seen the series, i find that you are going to be SO lost. The actors could have been so much better. Sokka was awful and sukos scar was hardly even there! Aang was not light hearted and Katara was just there. Why did the creators let M. Knight direct this film? He obviously has no idea what he's doing. I'm so upset. The movie is a disaster. I hope when they do the next two books, a new director/actors are chosen. Better yet, they should redo the whole f****** film.… Expand

The only reason this movie doesn't get a 0 is because of the cool special effects (saw it in 2-D). If you're a fan of the show don't watch it, the horrible script, worse acting, worse camera work, and worse decision to take the fun out of it make this an awful movie. the fight scenes weren't very good either, unlike in the show it looks like interpretive dance. I didn't like anything in the movie besides the special effects, and it basically ruined the show for me. don't waste your time.… Expand

Waste of money, in my thoughts. It was so random it seemed like the people who planned the movie never even saw the cartoon. The mispronunciations and wrong depictions from the cartoon, this movie was an Epic Fail. They should just re-do the whole movie.

Echhh, just plain drivel. No fun at all, nothing interesting in the dialogue, action, or effects...Skip it and watch the cartoon.

Wow. How terrible was that? I can't remember the last time I walked out of a movie but it was all I could do for this. Way to suck all the fun and personality out of one of the best animated series of the last decade, Shyamalan!

Shamalamadingdong has ruined yet another movie with his inability to direct himself out of a wet paper bag. And this time he did it on the writing front as well.

I wanted The Last Airbender to be wonderful. I thought maybe the critics were wrong. They are completely accurate the whole movie felt like it was in fast forward. The casting director made horrible choices as well. If anything see this movie for perspective on movies.

The effects and action scenes where well done, but the dialogue suffers as it feels like it was zooming through the avatar universe.

When I heard that M. Knight Shyamalan would be directing the live action adaptation of my favorite cartoon of all time, I felt like kicking a puppy. This man is a sham, he is not a director, he is a destroyer of all things glorious. He is nowhere near qualified to direct any film, let alone one with so much potential. He took brilliant source material, and ruined it. I would not be surprised if the script itself was written in crayon. To Shyamalan, I have only one thing to say. I hope this movie buries you.… Expand

I'm afraid it really it as bad as everyone says. I had even lowered my expectations accordingly and was still let down. I haven't seen writing this terrible since SW: Ep 2. This movie could make any actor look horrible.

Now, I had fun watching this movie, but only because I went with 2 of my friends and we all went in to the movie knowing that it was terrible (so we went just to laugh at it). There are so many flaws with this movie it honestly seems intentional. The fighting was alright at some points but then it gets to a point where you are thinking "Let's see...you bend water and this fire bender here is using fire, PUT THE GOD DAMN FIRE OUT SO HE CAN'T USE IT!". There is also some very helpful narration brought to you by Katara and it's about as pointless as giving a snake a pair of shoes; the entire movie, instead of letting the audience SEE what is going on you just hear things like "We went this way and Ang was thinking this and that, so blah blah blah". Why do I have to look at a tree in the distance as she is explaining what evidentally happened instead of seeing what ACTUALLY happened instead!? Also there were some of the corniest moments I have ever seen in a movie, in the Last Airbender. It's just too much to rant about...but if you want to see it anyway, expect a comedy.… Expand

On the one hand, I'm impressed by the film's commitment to the source material. It pulls from multiple episodes and does allot of it justice. Unfortunately, it does this at the expense of its character development and actual dialogue. And the fact is, that while the martial arts, awesome animation, and intriguing storyline were all large facets of the series, the one aspect that set it above typical kids shows was the characters, Instead we're left with cardboard cutouts that leave us longing for the show. Again, if you're looking for eye candy and unique martial arts scenes, you could do allot worse. just don't expect much else.… Expand

I'll start with the disclaimer that I'm a fan of the series. But I'll set away from that to review this movie on it's own merits. This movie is lacking two key features a movie needs. 1) Characters. It's nothing but people saying lines. You could swap around actors and it would have made no difference. There was zero performance in this movie. 2) Story. This movie is a series of events poorly linked together by narration. They tried to compress a whole season of TV storyline into 2 hours, and they failed. At the end of the movie, I felt like I had sat through maybe 30 minutes of a story, despite how much ground they tried to cover. So you may be able to put those two things aside and try and enjoy the action. Good luck. The action is boring. The bending is fairly well done with CGI, but the fight choreography is not interesting at all. it's slow, lacking skill, and looks clumsy. There are not knock down drag out fights in this film. Just weird slow down/speed up cinematography with CG over it. Now, back as a fan of the series. If you love the series don't see this movie. It's not going to ruin your love of the series, it's just not good. They make weird changes, like pronouncing almost every name differently for no reason. Ang is now "awng" and Saka is now "Soo-ka" It's just unexplained and weird. This movie is just like you watch short snippets of the first season, but with poor acting and boring fight choreography. Oh, and how could I forget, the dialogue is first grader material. I mean, it's TERRIBLE. "I searched the library, and found a scroll in the library!" Sometimes a movie will use poor dialogue to help move along the story, or to try and explain a lot in a little time. This move was NOTHING BUT THAT. Right from the start, the first 5 or 10 minutes it was awful, and it continued the whole way through. Honestly, even if these people CAN act, they're going to have a hard time doing it with this dialogue. This movie is the antithesis of the series. No character, no plot, not fun, no good action. It's not just a failure to fans of the series, this movie is a failure to movies as a whole. It's just poor film making from beginning to end.… Expand

Giving this movie a 1 is generous. How does M. Night call himself a fan of the show? How does he call himself a director? Both fans and newcomers will absolutely hate what I begrudgingly call a film. Shame on you M. Night for continuing your egotistical joyride in the movie industry. The only redeeming quality to this movie is that I hope is put the nail in his directorial coffin.

This movie is a colossal waste of time. Critical aspects of the plot were left out, the movie scenes hopped around at a dizzying rate, the acting was thoroughly unconvincing, and the explanations were excessive and sometimes confusing. The characters had no depth. The bending -- which is thier ability to manipulate air, water, fire, and earth -- was just a bunch of weak tai chi moves with a little a bit of special effects at the end. The ending was ridiculous. This movie was bad, very bad. If you were into the series, you're going to need counseling after the movie.… Expand

Anyone rating this higher than a 4 is just trying to trick you into making a terrible, terrible mistake. The movie was feculent. Poor acting, endless exposition, completely drained of humor and characterization. You could do a seminar on how not to make a movie from this film.

If anyone has even watched the anime show, they'll know that those dumb hour long fancy movements that they shoved at us in the movie will have left right when they saw it because it doesn't take literally 30 seconds of arm exercises to bend water in the real show.

I am 17 years old and i loved the avatar series and my opinion of this movie is comming from a fan of the show's point of view; being that I am a part of the teenage demographic that this movie was targeting, I think I can speak for most airbender fans. this was by far the biggest disaster of a movie I have seen since Dragon Ball came out. I guess the best way to write this review is by the rating scale provided by yahoo: story, acting, direction, visuals, and overall. Story: I have got to give them credit for trying to stick to the series's storyline, but they made a massive fail in execution. The movie tried way too hard to reenact each episode and fit it into a movie that's under 2 hours long. also, the fire benders couldn't bend fire out of the air (all but one) which was EXTREMELY disappointing and i didnt understand why they chose to make that change. Acting: As for the acting of the movie, it was horrendous: everyone in the film either over-acted the whole time or didn't act it out enough to make me feel attached to the characters. when there was tragedy going on I either felt like "what?" or "so, I've only seen you in like 3 minutes of screen time. who cares if your not around anymore." in other words, I never got attached to the characters like i usually do in good films. some of the dramatic moments were actually more humorous than sad. Direction: the direction of this movie was EVERYWHERE! I watched all of the episodes from the cartoon since it came out when i was about 14 years old so i know all about what they talked about in the movie with no explanation necessary, but for anyone that was new to the airbender storyline would have no idea what was going on after about 1/3 of the way through. they mentioned very important things from the series that play a major part in the story very quickly with little or no explanation IE: the "hidden library" was HUGE in the series and definitely required more talking than it was given in the movie, the spirit world left you feeling confused about what was going on, and alot more that im not even going to get into. Visuals: the bending in the movie really left you wanting more (not in a good way), it was super disappointing and did not look very fun to watch. the bending looked more like a dance with no elemental outcome than bending. im not too concerned with "the scar" that everyone in getting all worked up about, because if someone had a burn wound like he did in real life it would look very similar to what we saw in the film. anyway, i wish they had put more effort out on the bending factor and not chose to skip or shorten fight scenes by merely "scaring" away the bad guys (you'll understand if you dare to watch this movie). Overall: the movie was overall a cop-out of a film. i guarantee that the fans would have loved to wait a little longer for the films release if they would have gotten a better job on just about everything in the movie. I'd like to end this review on a good note and that note is..... (drum role) the trailers were pretty sweet looking, just watch them and bask in the mystery of not watching the film. trust me, it'll be better if you not know what it actually looks like, just use those images to visualize what it looks like and you will have a better time thinking about it, i did.… Expand

Think Dragonball Evolution but WORSE. Nuff said.

Uwe Boll eat your heart out.

I don't get it. How could he possibly ruin this movie??? All he needed was to copy and paste the scripts from the original series, add in some appropriate actors for the role (perhaps some that had emotions and fit the race roles), and get the names right. Instead we get slow action with incomprehensible plot line. I thought the series was amazing and would love to see the second two with all new actors, except for Dev Pate who did welll, and replace Shyamalan with the original writers and directors. Shyamalan hasn't had a decent movie since The Sixth Sense. I see dead career for this director and writer.… Expand

I'm a fan of the series. A huge fan really. I believe M Night really tried hard to create a good movie, but the idea of this movie should have been dropped ages ago. The main problem was is that such a HUGE storyline had to be covered in a matter of less than two hours. Therefore, the entire movie suffered. Parts were left out, random stuff had to be made up. Also, the characters were pretty bad, and were under-developed as a rest. Other problems include that the director, for whatever reason, decided to change fundamental parts of the series. Idk why he made the fire nation a bunch of brownies and made the protagonists white. Also did he really have to change the pronunciations? It was a noble effort, but it was truly a dismal failure. I like the graphics though.… Expand

"You think you're heaven-sent/Gonna get your halo bent," goes Calvin Johnson, as only the ex-Beat Happening frontman can, on "Halo Bender" from The Halo Benders' second album "Don't Tell Me Now"(a collaborative effort with Built to Spill's lead singer Doug Martsch), a song that perfectly captures the egomaniacal auteur's fall from grace, especially when the atonal godfather of indie ululates(with some paraphrasing): "It's the ["Last Air]bender"/A real career-ender," which sadly just might be the case. So murky, so haphazardly executed are the special effects, let alone, "mis-en-scene" after "mis-en-scene", it wouldn't be a stretch to say that this would-be fantasy epic is, at times, the filmic equivalent of ramshackle indie rock. Clearly, staging action scenes is not this writer/director's forte. They have the look of a full-dress rehearsal with the cameras rolling. For instance, a confrontation that pits Aang and the Earth Benders against the Fire Benders seem to unfold a step too slow, as the Avatar(Ana Eng from the They Might Be Giants song would have been more entertaining), who seems to control air with the use of hula, is undermined by elemental special effects that materialize at an almost glacial pace, as the mortal enemies use air, water, and fire against each other to farcical effect. Even worse than the failed stabs at spectacle, the filmmaker, who normally coaxes wonderful performances out of his young perfomers(Rory Culkin & Abigail Breslin from "Signs", and especially, Haley Joel Osment from "The Sixth Sense"), gets three bewilderingly bad ones here(especially Jackson Rathbone: Is Sokka supposed to be a coke addict?), although to be fair, the dialogue is atrocious in its sheer perfuntoriness; the words nothing more than time-filers to bide time before the next incompetent action set-piece. While Aang's true identity and the James Cameron film both sharing the same name can't be helped, the filmmaker, like M.C. Hammer going after Michael Jackson(back in the day), seemingly wants moviegoers to think of him in Cameron's league, since "The Last Airbender" references "The Abyss"(the water-shaping and the giant wave), which is unfortunate because the abyss is where this prodigiously talented(but obviously slumping) filmmaker is heading toward.… Expand

Absolutely terrible in every respect. The movie was incredibly dull; I found myself more concerned with how uncomfortable the seats were than what was going on in the movie. The acting was incredibly poor, the special effects at times were okay, but nothing special. The fight choreography was the worst I've seen in quite some time. The plot had more holes in it than old socks. Moreover, there was absolutely NO character development. We aren't given any reason to care about Sokka, Aang, or Katara! They are just there. I went into the theater unaware of the bad reviews or anything like that, and I thought it was absolutely terrible. Why do they allow M. Knight to continue making movies? This was so poorly written that no matter who directed it, it wouldn't come out with decent reviews. A failure in every possible way. I guess if you are going to fail, fail big. That's exactly what M. Knight did.… Expand