The Last Airbender (2010)

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Starring Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, Noah Ringer, Aasif Mandvi, Dev Patel, Shaun Toub, Seychelle Gabriel, Cliff Curtis, Summer Bishil, Randall Duk Kim, Keong Sim, Isaac Jin Solstein. [PG]

Fantasy film set in a world that’s separated into communities by the four elements where certain individuals are able to control and manipulate these elements for their own gain; there’s also a certain “child” (Ringer) known as the Avatar who can achieve power over all four, which makes him a target of the power-hungry Fire Nation. Unintelligible drivel based on a popular Nickelodeon animated TV show is (by seemingly all accounts) insulting to the source material and fanbase, and newbies are no better off dealing with its murky plotting, murkier visuals, pathetic performances, and deadening expository dialogue. A would-be summer blockbuster completely drained of any sense of fun or adventure, the shapeless mass just sits up there on the screen, tedious and inert and uninvolving, never providing a single reason to care about a single thing that’s happening or a single character that’s making it happen. Even its conceptual premise of “benders” being able to master fire, water, etc. is an embarrassment of underwhelming results—it looks like someone clumsily drew some pebbles, a few dewdrops, and the spark of a Zippo lighter over the “live-action” business and called it a day. Given a rushed 3-D conversion for its initial theatrical release (again, by seemingly all accounts, this was a bad decision). Shyamalan also wrote the script and co-produced.

5/100