Hopefully the Last

The Last Airbender, a live-action re-imagining of a Nickelodeon cartoon series about elemental super powers is just — for lack of a better term — one massive brain-fart.

It contaminates the minds of youth by teaching them one terrible lesson: Entertainment doesn't have to be entertaining.

The basis of The Last Airbender relies solely on the accepted social construct that going to the movies is a fun experience. While usually true, adult viewers won't have a problem seeing through the mask of movie magic to decide that this particular piece is not worth their time.

Children — with their soft, spongy brains — are impressionable to no end, and the wet flatulence of this movie will unfortunately settle in their minds as an example of what film entertainment should be. Well, so much for the next generation of great filmmakers.

From its very core outward, The Last Airbender isn't much more than a putrid reminder of how terrible cinema can be. It all leads back to writer-director M. Night Shyamalan (The Happening), whose films get worse with every release.

This time is no different. His abysmal dialogue powers the painfully awful acting shared equally among every actor in the movie. Multiple times throughout the film, awkward pauses in dialogue spin the actors' performances off their axes into infuriating mediocrity.

Similarly, juvenile camera shots, especially shaky zoom-ins and zoom-outs, leave the audience wondering more about directorial decisions than the plot. However, this clearly isn't purposeful and shows Shyamalan's knack for poor direction and editing skills. Of the many annoyances in the film, these stand alone as the ones most likely to drag the audience out of the experience.

Stumbling as it does, the film follows Aang (newcomer Noah Ringer), a boy who may be the one with the power to save the world and whatnot. This world is full of people with the ability to bend the four elements — earth, fire, wind and water. Aang is different because he can control all four.

Friends and enemies abound, including the evil fire empire and Aang's misguided nemesis Prince Zuko, played by a truly out-of-place Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire). But the more that is explained, the more interest will wane. It certainly is formulaic, yet it still manages to be a challenge for anyone's viewing comprehension.

This is because the film accomplishes the inexplicable feat of being a paradox, equally clichéd and predictable as it is totally baffling. It's easy to guess which characters are going to fall in love — barring the fact that the narration just flat out tells the audience — and it's easy to guess which characters will die.

However, there's no rhyme or reason to these events. The characters are so hollow that their actions are meaningless, making it easy for the audience to guess what's going to happen, yet be unable to explain any motivations.

Whether the cartoon is as good as the movie is of no consequence. Without knowledge of the animated series, the film is just a hot mess of uninteresting elemental splash images and throwaway story arcs. With knowledge of the cartoon, it's exactly the same, with the added bonus that fans will find important scenes cut from the movie.

Visually, viewers shouldn't expect a stunning package. The silly dance-inflected Tai-Chi the characters must perform to utilize their control of the elements is laughable and so slow-moving that the plodding battle scenes don't draw much adrenaline.

On top of this, there is the useless 3-D gimmick, added in post-production to keep up with the latest trend. The effect adds annoying motion blur and discoloration to what may have been an otherwise pleasing on-screen color palette — a minor complaint given the movie's other transgressions in taste.

Everything in The Last Airbender has been done before, only better in most cases. This film is just too little too soon, a short and bitter romp through a world never meant to evolve beyond animation.

RATING: 1 star out of 5

diversions@umdbk.com