I can’t tell whether M. Night Shamalayn’s The Last Airbender was a success or failure. If I’m reading the numbers on IMDB correctly, an estimated $150,000,000 was spent on the film. Box Office Mojo states that the movie made approximately $123 million domestically and $27 million in the foreign market. Looking at these numbers simplistically he made his money back on the film but no large profit… yet. Does the industry see this as a success and will they continue to give him money even with fan backlash and poor ratings?
The critics were hard on this movie. Roger Ebert gave this movie a half star out of five and hoped “that the title proves prophetic”. IGN gives Airbender one and a half star out of ten and says
“The title Avatar isn’t the only thing that The Last Airbender has lost in its transition from the small-screen world of animated television to the realm of would-be franchise feature film making. Also gone, unfortunately, is any semblance of heart or drama or, really, anything of interest at all.”
The critics of Rotten Tomatoes gave this movie 8% out of 100%. Box Office Mojo’s readers are more forgiving. They gave the movie a B-.
On a five star rating, I’d give Airbender a two star rating. I didn’t bother with seeing the 3D version because, like Clash of the Titans, this movie added 3D after the fact. I wish studios would quit wasting money on this. In addition to not falling for the 3D version, I went in expecting it to be a kids film. I also went in without having ever seeing the animated series that it was based on. I also went in having seen The Happening a couple of months prior and the carried with me the disappointment of M. Night’s latest films. I thought that after those, Airbender had to be great or at least ground breaking. Sadly, it wasn’t. As much as I wanted to like this film and as much as I wanted to leave the theater shouting “M. Night is back! Grovel before is feet!” It just didn’t happen. This movie was painfully mediocre. It was beautifully shot. The costuming was excellent. Even the premise was compelling. He had some really great actors but for some reason, it just didn’t come together.
I’m a little obsessed with understanding why this film didn’t work. It had EVERYTHING. M. Night had an extensive budget. Parts of this film was shot in Greenland. The visuals were vast and crisp. The Firebenders were powerful looking and felt like a force to be feared. He had access to any actors that he wanted. I liked Noah Ringer as Aang but for the life of me I can’t figure out why M. Night would cast a kid from Dallas, TX. Nicola Peltz as Katara seemed fresh off of the Disney Channel and pulled me out of the experience every time she would deliver her lines because it felt like she was delivering lines. After Dev Patel replaced Jesse McCartney, I’m sure this became the reason how we got a massive Indian cast for the Firebenders. His family had to match him. In fact as I watched the movie, I began to wonder if this was the first mainstream science fiction film that had such a large Indian cast that wasn’t in stereotypical Indian roles? If so, I think this is the only reason this movie is ground-breaking. Also, while I loved seeing Aasif Mandvi in the movie, I was totally distracted by him because I expected him to crack jokes. Instead he was a bad guy. He was believable but I giggled every time he was on screen.
Instead of going with a story twist, M. Night did a casting twist. Many people believed that Airbender should have had an all Japanese cast and were upset that some of the roles were given to Caucasians. There was also an uproar about M. Night being racist because he cast dark people as the bad guys. There also seems to be a general feeling of frustration with M. Night amongst movie-goers. There are a lot of articles claiming that M. Night has run his course as a director. A lot of people are claiming that he doesn’t have what it takes to make a great film anymore. One reporter even confronted him with this sentiment. His response was that “I think if I thought like you I’d kill myself”. (Would that be Seppuku where you die with honor as to not cause anymore shame or the American kind where you are considered a coward?)
The latest M. Night controversy is his new movie The Devil. It appears to be a horror movie about a bunch of people stuck in an elevator. I’m not seeing a lot of enthusiasm about this film. In fact, when the trailer was previewed at Comic-Con, it was met with booing from the audience. Is this collective M. Night fatigue? Is his career in trouble or is it a bunch of loud fanboys creating negative buzz? I won’t bother seeing The Devil mainly because I’m just tired of not being entertained. The real question is will you pay to see another M. Night movie?
Listen to Carl and I talk more about The Last Airbender on The Sci-Fi Party Line Podcast.
http://www.thelastairbendermovie.com/