The Last Airbender (2010)

	Also Known As: Avatar: The Last Airbender (working title)
	Year of first release: 2010
	Director: M. Night Shyamalan (The 6th Sense, Signs, The Visit)
	Actors: Noah Ringer (Cowboys and Aliens), Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire, Chappie)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Fantasy, Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 17.09.2017, VOD, 32" TV screen
Synopsis: The young Aang, successor to a long line of Avatars, must master all four elements and stop the Fire Nation from enslaving the Water Tribes and the Earth Kingdom.
Review: From The 6th Sense (1999) to The Happening (2008), M. Night Shyamalan has successfully delivered movies that undoubtedly bear his mark. This has been working because he could apply his style to stories that were appropriate for it, and we have to admit that towards the end we were tired of those slow movies with a final twist. The story in the latest ones like Signs (2002) was different but the filming style was the same. Then came this project based on a very successful TV-series, and that had to be renamed because the name Avatar had already been taken the previous year by a small other project. And Shyamalan applied his style to it, which in combination with a Fantasy story makes a movie annoying to watch, without being able to pinpoint why. It annoyed me when I watched it in the cinema and it still annoyed me this time. It was a great disappointment for me in 2010 because I was expecting better from the director, from the story which gave me a shock when I realized it was only the first episode in a trilogy (that never even came) and from the trailer which I found awesome at the time and which doesn't transpire in the movie. That's a pity because the Fantasy world is interesting (I love the Fire Nation's boats), the special effects good and the Martial Arts choreography very original and well executed by the actors. But it doesn't prevent the movie from being flat, I don't find another word for it. Shyamalan's excuse is that he has always honestly said that he only knows how to shoot in one style: his own. So people shouldn't have expected something different from what he delivered. The movie was a big failure, the sequels never made and Shyamalan even had troubles to direct in Hollywood after that (After Earth didn't help), so that now he is back to independent cinema like with The Visit, maybe for the best.
Rating: 2 /10