12) THE LAST AIRBENDER

Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Stars: Noah Ringer, Dev Patel, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, Shaun Toub, Aasif Mandvi, Cliff Curtis
Year: 2010
Rating: PG

Having never seen the hugely-popular animated series "Avatar: The Last Airbender," even after all the criticism online from fans of the show I still tried to approach M. Night Shyamalan's live-action film version, The Last Airbender, with an open mind.

Honest - I tried.

The Last Airbender opens with a world in turmoil. In this world, divided into the four kingdoms based on the elements of fire, air, water and earth, all is ruled over by the Avatar - the one link between the spirit and human world who has the ability to bend all four elements at his will. But a hundred years ago the Avatar disappeared, and in that time the Fire Nation has systematically set out to take over the other three kingdoms for total domination, killing the benders who won't bow to their will ...

Creating the world in chaos that opens the film, in the Water Kingdom with brother and sister Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) and Katara (Nicola Peltz), who live in a frozen climate and dress like nomadic Eskimos. Soon after the film establishes the characters and their world, Katara - a waterbender herself - and Sokka discover something strange hidden under the ice ... and unleash a gigantic ball of water that bursts and releases its prisoner - Aang (Noah Ringer), a young boy who turns out to be the long-missing Avatar.

But as Sokka and Katara acclimate him to the new world he's awoken in, Aang's reemergence has not gone unnoticed by the Fire Nation - and in particular, Prince Zuko (Dev Patel), the exiled son of the Fire King, who via his actions has been banned from his own land until he can bring the Avatar to his father. Along with his Uncle Iroh (Shaun Toub), who's gone along to look after the prince, Zuko's one mission in life seems to be to redeem himself in the eyes of his father, the king (Cliff Curtis) ... so he sets off immediately to see capture Aang and determine if he IS the true Avatar - the one thing standing in the way of the Fire Nation's total dominance over the entire world. But a skirmish with Aang, in which the boy escapes thanks to the help of Katara and Sokka, not only makes Prince Zuko determined to succeed in his quest - but also to beat out his father's head officer, Commander Zhao (Aasif Mandvi), who has also got wind of the Avatar and will do anything to capture the boy and prove HIS loyalty to the Fire King first ...

All of this as Katara and Sokka travel with Aang, in a quest to complete the boy's training (he can, so far, only bend air - though he does it QUITE well, and is in fact the last of the airbenders) before the Fire Nation finds them first.

All of the above crammed into just 103 minutes of visually stunning special effects ... and not much else. The Last Airbender looks great; special care was taken to make the bending (manipulation) of the elements of fire, water, air and earth on-screen nothing short of visually stunning, and there are indeed a couple of fight scenes (including the finale) that have their moments.

Sadly, it's all wrapped around a bunch of characters you're given almost zero time to get to know - much less care about. Slumdog Millionaire's Dev Patel turns in the one truly memorable performance - in fact, the guy radiates on the screen every time he appears, getting your attention - but the rest of the actors are pretty much working with paper-thin characters who are given no time to shine on-screen. There is just too much crammed into the 103 minutes here, a lot of it special effects, so that in the end you're left with an empty, "who cares?" feeling about what happens to the majority of the characters involved.

Like a window display mannequin, The Last Airbender is pretty to look at on the outside - but ultimately hollow when you look beyond the surface. Even as someone who's never seen the animated series, I felt pretty short-changed after this one, and would only recommend it to those who want to see some cool special effects (even though, to be honest, the martial arts gesturing of the benders even got on my nerves after awhile) ... or to see what even a genuine talent like Dev Patel can make of mediocre material like this. ** - Reel Mediocre