The highly anticipated movie by M.Night Shyamalan finally hit the screens in Singapore today. This movie generated a lot of hype even before it opened in the US on July 1st. To be honest, I was one of the few who waited anxiously for this movie even though I do not know half of the cast due to the fact that they're new or relatively unknown actors/actresses.
Anyway, it opened to mostly negative reviews and with full knowledge of the fact that it garnered 2 stars according to 8 Days, I went ahead to watch it today on its opening date. And after the movie, the only thing I could think of was "Thank God I could get a student price for the ticket and saved $3.50."
In a nutshell, the cartoon the movie is based on revolves around four nations, namely the Fire Nation, Water Tribe, Earth Kingdom and the already extinct Air Nomads. The Fire Lord then decided to gain total control and attacked the other three nations. And now it is up to the Avatar, the only person who can bend all four elements, to stop the Fire Lord's evil plans. And the movie, which has been planned to be a trilogy, will depict Aang (the Avatar as well as The Last Airbender in the movie title) on his journey to learn to bend the remaining three elements (Water, Earth and Fire) which ultimately culminates in his epic showdown against the Fire Lord. The first movie follows the first season of the cartoon which ends with Aang mastering Water bending.
The movie was really disappointing, especially if you are a fan of it's cartoon counterpart, Avatar: The Last Airbender. Instead of going on and on about the bad points of the movie, let us talk about the good points first. I mean, there are always 2 sides to everything right?
The good points were the music and the effects. The music was composed by James Newton Howard and after a quick research, was revealed to have received a couple of Emmy and Oscar nominations for his work on movies and television. He has collaborated with Hans Zimmer (another renowned composer) on The Dark Knight. Although his credentials pretty much speak for itself, I think I will still talk about it.
The music accurately captured the mood of the scene and really engaged the audience. I felt the nervousness and the trepidation of the characters and especially for the big epic fight scene at the end where I could really feel my heart pounding with anxiety and it made me wanna leap into the screen and bend some water to fight the evil Fire Nation.
For the special effects, well... what else can I say? The effects were done by Industrial Light and Magic, who all of you know did the effect was Star Wars. Apparently, the CGI and visual effects took 9 months to create which was why the movie was released this late although filming wrapped up almost a year ago. Also, in case you did not know, one of the trailers which was suppose to premier last Christmas was pushed to February because there were not enough effects. This shows how much time and effort was put into the creation of effects for this movie.
The special effects, especially for the four elements, was really mind blowing. There is something about seeing real people bending elements "for real" than watching it as a cartoon. It provides a sense of realism and it makes element bending look much cooler. You see streaks of fire as it weaves up and down, left and right; you see an Earthbender erecting a huge stone wall from the ground and you see the debris as it gets blasted apart by a fire ball; you see spheres of water floating in the air before being separated into tiny droplets; and you see huge gusts of wind as the last airbender literally kicks up a tornado. The special effects really made me wish I was a Waterbender so I could have a super cool power to control water to turn people into ice statues or drop icicles on unsuspecting enemies.
Now we move on to what broke the movie. I thought the story was poorly adapted and the scenes were not planned well. They tried to jampack around 20 episodes into a short 1 hour and 40 minutes film and it felt rushed. Some key scenes which were included were cut short and it left me really unsatisfied because if you want to film that scene, as a huge fan of the cartoon, I rather you do a full version of it than a summarised version. The epic battle scene at the Northern Water Tribe was also shortened and changed. The only familiar elements from the cartoon were Aang meditating at the sacred pond, Katara freezing Zuko in a block of ice, Zhao killing the Moon Spirit and Princess Yue sacrificing her life force to revive the Moon Spirit.
Regarding the story, certain scenes were not chronologically accurate. For example, in the last segment of the film where General Zhao attacks Zuko when his back was turned did not actually happen during that battle in the cartoon. It was actually during an Agni-Kai (term for a duel between Firebenders) after Zhao invited Zuko on his ship. And the ship scene was actually included in the movie! The script was not accurate as well, especially the key speeches by the dragon in the spirit world who constantly guides Aang. For example, when Aang consulted him on how to defeat the Firebenders, I do not think he asked Aang to use the ocean to attack them in the cartoon and I am very sure he told Aang about the importance of the Moon and Ocean Spirits (which was omitted in the movie).
Ok, I admit that I watched the series over a year ago but I have a vague impression of where scenes should be and what was said because I have watched the whole series at least twice. I also acknowledge that it is an adaptation so not everything has to follow the series but as a fan, I feel insulted that key scenes and speeches were cut and changed entirely just so they could keep in time. As an adaptation, it was really poorly planned and executed.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
It would be a good movie to catch if you have not watched the cartoon and it is actually one of the more interesting movies showing now, besides Inception. Music and effects really helped make this hot honeyed wreck of a movie bearable.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
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