The Last Airbender

Adapted from Nickelodeon's hit cartoon series Avatar : The Last Airbender, M. Night Shyamalan brings us The Last Airbender. Apparently, Avatar was dropped from the title to avoid confusing it with James Cameron's mega blockbuster Avatar. Hmmm ...


Earth as we know it is divided between the four great nations ... Air, Water, Earth and Fire. Everyone co-existed in harmony until the Fire nation decided to wage war against the rest for the sole purpose of world dominance.


A century has passed since the world has last seen an Avatar ... a being capable of controlling and manipulating all four elements ... earth, fire, air and water. It is believe that the Avatar is the only one with the potential to bring back peace with its powers.


We next see Aang (first time actor, Noah Ringer) blasting out of a ice sphere and as it turns out, he's the reincarnated Avatar *YAY*. Initially reluctant to accept his fate as the world's saviour, he slowly comes to term with his destiny and responsibility ... with the help of a Water bender, Katara (Nicola Peltz) and her brother, Sokka (Jackson Rathbone).

Since Aang was only trained to control the element of air before he pissed in his pants and bolted upon being crowned Avatar, he has to learn to bend the water element next. So off he goes to the Northern Water Kingdom with his groupie in order to attain Water masters to train him up.


Dev Patel (from Slumdog Millionaire) is Zuko, the banished prince from the Fire Nation. His aim is to capture the Avatar and hand him back to his father, the Fire Lord Ozai in order to redeem himself for being 'too soft'.

So an epic battle between the Water and Fire Nations ensued in the Northern Water Kingdom and no prizes for guessing how things ended. The movie finished with the Fire Lord sending his exceptionally gifted Fire bender daughter out to hunt down the Avatar. We can expect a sequel in the making soon I suppose ...


The CGIs were pretty impressive but then again, one would expect no less from a USD150 million shooting budget. Since regular 2D cameras were used for the filming, an additional USD 15 million were coughed out to convert it into 3D.

If you're a fan of magic and fantasy or the cartoon series itself, then you ought to enjoy this enchanting flick. The characters pretty much stuck to the originals but don't go expecting good scripting or exceptional story plot. I dare say, not even Shyamalan would be bold enough to anticipate any Oscar nominations for his work this time around. Nevertheless, it's not a bad way to spend 2 hours of your weekend catching this. Don't forget the popcorn!

Rating : 3 / 5