Last Airbender = Epic Fail

There was a modest amount of controversy when M. Night Shyamalan announced the cast of his movie adaptation of 'The Last Airbender'. The anime featured Asian characters, and here they were mostly recast as white.

Well, what's the best way to squelch controversy? Make a movie so bad people become completely indifferent.

From Roger Ebert's 1/2 star review:

"The Last Airbender" is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented. The laws of chance suggest that something should have gone right. Not here.

From the AV CLUB's F review (yes, they actually gave the film an F !):

AV CLUB: If any movie ever warranted a class-action lawsuit against the filmmakers, it’s The Last Airbender... The Last Airbender isn’t that much different from the rest of this summer’s generally dire multiplex fare... But it is remarkable in one respect: It’s the worst of them.

And it goes on and on... while a fair amount of venom is directed at the movie because of its poor 3D retrofit, the storyline itself has been roundly criticized as dull and incomprehensible, so it's not like Night's movie was ruined post-production, but more like a train wreck from the very beginning.

Which kind of bums me out since Shyamalan, who directed The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable before turning 30, showed such great promise at the beginning of his film career. Even his more portentous fare, like Lady in the Water and The Village at least showed signs of an artist who cared about his work. That his career is on such a creative tailspin should depress anyone who would like to see a filmmaker capable of creating great movies unable for whatever reason to do so.