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56 What's the Matter with Kansas?
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68 Whiz Kids
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56 Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest, The
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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Last Airbender, The

EMAILPRINTParamount Pictures

Last Airbender, The reviews
20
3.1 User Score:

Generally unfavorable reviews

Based on 33 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 267 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Adventure  |  Family/Kids  |  Fantasy  |  War

Written by: M. Night Shyamalan

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan

Release Date:
Theatrical: July 1, 2010

Running Time: 103 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: PG

Starring Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, Dev Patel, Jessica Jade Andres, Aasif Mandvi, Shaun Toub, Cliff Curtis, and Keong Sim

Air, Water, Earth, Fire. Four nations tied by destiny when the Fire Nation launches a brutal war against the others. A century has passed with no hope in sight to change the path of this destruction. Caught between combat and courage, Aang discovers he is the lone Avatar with the power to manipulate all four elements. Aang teams with Katara, a Waterbender, and her brother, Sokka, to restore balance to their war-torn world. (Paramount Pictures)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

63

USA Today Scott Bowles

He hasn't mastered the craft yet, but M. Night Shyamalan may be on to something with this action-movie thing.

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60

Movieline Stephanie Zacharek

Completely harmless and inoffensive, and at the very least, Shyamalan appears to be having a little fun here.

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50

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

The story is a much more serious problem, a run-on, overstuffed narrative that feels like a very long prologue for a climax that never comes.

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50

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The movie is "Star Wars" with martial arts, plus a touch of "The Last Emperor." Technically, it's not badly done; I enjoyed the physical clash of elements, the water balls rising like sculpture in the air.

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50

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Unfortunately, this all proceeds at a supersonic tempo, with Shyamalan's directorial finger stuck on the fast-forward button. Significant plot points whiz by in this movie equivalent of speed-dating.

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40

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Airbender, whether intentionally or not, is pegged almost exclusively to a small-fry state of mind.

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40

Boxoffice Magazine Pam Grady

The problems begin with Shyamalan's script, which is an orgy of exposition. The characters explain and explain and explain some more, points driven home with the subtlety of a jackhammer.

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40

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

With a surprising lack of verve, humor, and narrative tension, Shyamalan’s live-action foundation film is unlikely to woo new fans to the tale.

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40

Time Out New York Keith Uhlich

Only "Slumdog Millionaire’s" Dev Patel, as the bastard prince of the villainous Fire nation, truly gets jiggy with the fantasy. Everyone else stares off into green-screen space and waits for lunch to be called.

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40

Empire Ian Nathan

Far from the catastrophe the US bewailed, but still disappointingly clunky. Notch it between Eragon (below) and Dragonslayer (above) on a sliding scale of fantasy filmmaking.

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38

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The Last Airbender (they couldn't use the series' "Avatar" title because another film got there first, without all the bending) is more about marshaling extras and interpolating tons of computer-generated effects and keeping the factions straight. It's a tough sit.

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38

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams

A toxic potion that will put children to sleep and kill his (M. Night Shyamalan) career.

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30

Arizona Republic Bill Goodykoontz

While the special effects are impressive enough, M. Night Shyamalan's film doesn't make a lick of sense.

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30

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Even during the climax, the film still is struggling to introduce the world of the film and its strange rules.

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30

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

It's a little bit Tolkien, a little bit Lucas, a little bit "Matrix," a little bit "Dune" and rather too much Philip Pullman, all stuck together with some powerfully expensive effects and lots of cute kids doing tai chi.

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25

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Playing a hero who's meant to be something akin to the young Dalai Lama, Ringer brings less than zero gravitas to the role. He makes the kid who plays Gibby on "iCarly" look like Sir Laurence Olivier.

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25

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

The Last Airbender is like a Care Bears movie that got waylaid in the fourth dimension. It’s insufferably silly.

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25

Orlando Sentinel Roger Moore

This colossal folly, the fiasco of the summer of 2010 — gives us all a ringside seat at the sight of Mr. “I See Dead People’s” career gurgling down the drain.

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25

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The Last Airbender’ is dreadful, an incomprehensible fantasy-action epic that makes the 2007 film “The Golden Compass,’’ a similarly botched adaptation of a beloved property from another medium, look like a four-star classic.

25

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Shyamalan takes the beloved Nickelodeon anime series -- the full title was Avatar: The Last Airbender -- and turns it into 103 minutes of overproduced, stilted nonsense.

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25

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The Last Airbender is an insult to anyone with a triple-digit I.Q. and a willingness to use it inside the confines of a movie theater. This is bad filmmaking and bad storytelling. It also sounds what should be the death knell to M. Night Shyamalan's career.

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20

The New York Times A.O. Scott

The problem -- the catastrophe -- of The Last Airbender is not in the conception but the execution. The long-winded explanations and clumsy performances are made worse by graceless effects and a last-minute 3-D conversion that wrecks whatever visual grace or beauty might have been there.

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20

Variety Peter Debruge

This is all enormously disappointing, of course, since the best we could hope for from a live-action "Avatar" adaptation is the mind-blowing equivalent of our first encounters with wire-fu, rather than this cartoony nonsense.

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20

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

Unfortunately, its positive attributes are thrown out of balance by its abundant negatives - including chintzy effects, lumbering storytelling and an overstylized, earnest incompetence that evokes "Speed Racer."

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20

Chicago Reader Cliff Doerksen

The current national priorities should be as follows: reduce carbon emissions and stop funding the films of M. Night Shyamalan.

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12

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented.

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10

LA Weekly Robert Wilonsky

This is one muddled attempt at franchise making: confusing, drab, sluggish. (Ugly, too, if you're forced to see it in 3-D.)

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0

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A dull, boring, poorly acted, limply written and thoroughly unappealing fantasy, featuring bland characters locked in a struggle of no interest.

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0

New York Post Lou Lumenick

If M. Night Shyamalan sold his soul to the devil for the success of "The Sixth Sense," I think His Satanic Majesty has finally collected in full with The Last Airbender.

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0

Time Richard Corliss

Surely the worst botch of a fantasy epic.

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0

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The filmmaker has delivered yet another iteration of what has become a classic M. Night Shyamalan film, only much bigger than before, and, as a consequence, mind-bendingly turgid.

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0

St. Petersburg Times Steve Persall

The Last Airbender makes the cartoon version with its ratchet-jawed characters and clunky animation seem like a Pixar classic.

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0

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

The Last Airbender isn’t that much different from the rest of this summer’s generally dire multiplex fare—from "The A-Team" to "Jonah Hex"... But it is remarkable in one respect: It’s the worst of them.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 3.1 (out of 10) based on 267 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Tyler S gave it a1:
Poorly written, rushed plot, horrible dialog, painful acting, amazing effects, ok fight scenes. The "benders" took way to long to get the elements moving. Watch the cartoon series and skip this disaster.

Dave C gave it a2:
I have to hand it to M. Night, he is THE most consistent director in Hollywood... Every film he makes is consistently worse then the last! Check out all his movies on metacritic: 64, 62, 59, 44, 36, 34, 20... in that order!

Dave gave it a2:
Being a huge fan of the animated series on Nickelodeon, I was skeptical when I heard that that a live action movie was in the works, and it seems my skepticism was well placed. Everything I loved about the animation was missing in this film, most notably the personalities of the characters. Where the television cartoon had wonderful character, in this movie they might as well have all been zombies. Horrible acting, overworked dialog and for a movie that was supposedly 3-D, only about 5% of it was visibly so. I had to keep taking off my glasses to see the diffference and honestly it was hard to tell then too... This was the first book in four if they follow the animated program. I won't bother with the other 3 films. I wish now I spent the money to check out 'The Karate Kid' instead.

Aang A gave it a0:
1) My name is Aang not Oong! Everyone else's name is correct, why not mine? 2) My markings (Arrow) are a lite blue (kind of turqoust) color with no hieroglyphics. And it goes all the way down and around my body (arm and legs). 3) I'm a kid that loves to play around in all the books. I'm not that serious, yet. 4) Sakka, is a comedic strategist who loves to pick on his sister. He is not a serious warrior. 5) Katara, is a strong courageous and inspiring leader, not a needy little girl. 6) The "Fire Nation" wants to take over the world. They don't care about the spirit world. This movie was the worst movie my kids and I saw all year! We walked out very disapointed. My recommendation to all of my friends is to wait for the dvd to see me and not to waste your money!

Jake P gave it a0:
Absolutely terrible in every respect. The movie was incredibly dull; I found myself more concerned with how uncomfortable the seats were than what was going on in the movie. The acting was incredibly poor, the special effects at times were okay, but nothing special. The fight choreography was the worst I've seen in quite some time. The plot had more holes in it than old socks. Moreover, there was absolutely NO character development. We aren't given any reason to care about Sokka, Aang, or Katara! They are just there. I went into the theater unaware of the bad reviews or anything like that, and I thought it was absolutely terrible. Why do they allow M. Knight to continue making movies? This was so poorly written that no matter who directed it, it wouldn't come out with decent reviews. A failure in every possible way. I guess if you are going to fail, fail big. That's exactly what M. Knight did.

Ken F gave it an8:
How is it possible that no one has caught on yet? M. Night Shyamalan is a JOKE FILMMAKER! He's a latter day Andy Kauffman. I was shocked that no one seemed to catch on after The Happening. A man slapped a lion in the face! How can people have attempted to take this film seriously? It was obviously a comedy. This film is exactly the same. You can't tell me that it wasn't a joke for him to cast Aasif Mondvi as the heavy, or that the entire cast woodenly reciting terrible and mostly pointless dialog would have passed muster for any major studio film that wasn't intended to be taken with tongue firmly in cheek. Seriously, this movie was a comedy, and the joke was on everyone who tried to take it seriously. One of the more enjoyable movies I've seen this year.

anonymous anonymous gave it a1:
The only reason this movie doesn't get a 0 is because of the cool special effects (saw it in 2-D). If you're a fan of the show don't watch it, the horrible script, worse acting, worse camera work, and worse decision to take the fun out of it make this an awful movie. the fight scenes weren't very good either, unlike in the show it looks like interpretive dance. I didn't like anything in the movie besides the special effects, and it basically ruined the show for me. don't waste your time.

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