Obvious Outrage

Today, I went to a showing of The Last Airbender, a movie based on the critically acclaimed Nickelodeon show, Avatar: The Last Airbender (They had to drop the Avatar part because of the blue-people epic by Cameron). I was thoroughly excited for this. I have anxiously awaited the arrival of this film since it was announced while the television show was still airing. I am saddened to say I left the theater sorely disappointed. It was a catastrophe. The production team failed to cast not only Asian actors for the leads, but also actors that could act. After the initial fan outrage due to the white-washing of the leads, one part was recast; Dev Patel was signed on to play Zuko. This was the only proper casting. Patel channeled his character and delivered his lines with emotion. The other actors were flat, robotic even. But who could blame them? The script was so poorly written. Dialogue sounded as if it were read through a computer's speech function. Actors mispronounced the characters' names. Important information was prattled off, sounding as if it were straight from a reference volume. Transitions were non-existent, giving the film a fast pace with no time to breath. The most frustrating mistake in the film, however, was the abandoning of the theme, mythology, and martial arts of the television series. The idea of the Avatar was quickly explained, and the Avatar state went completely unexplained and was warped from its source. The original basis of the bending arts was almost completely abandoned. Benders went through many motions to do the simplest of bending, completely disregarding the martial arts form by which each bending style was inspired. In the end, Shyamalan created a clunky, loose adaption of a intelligent show containing tremendous depth.