I nearly shed a tear, I must admit it.
Not at the travesty of what M. Night Shyamalan did to Avatar: it was a bad film, but not as awful as has been suggested. Not at the politically incorrect parts dubbed ‘racebending’: I have never been too troubled about the casting, knowing the Hollywood machine is and will long remain extremely racially prejudiced, because it caters to its audience. Certainly not for the emotional high points of the film, such as stabbing a fish.
I nearly cried with laughter at the increasingly infamous scene of a whole group of earthbenders performing a long sequence of complex martial arts moves associated with element-bending…only for one puny rock to drift across the screen. Fortunately, this was the absolute nadir of the special effects in a generally good-looking film, although some inconsistent CG, obvious miniatures and rickety sets will date the film very quickly.
But this was not at all a good adaptation of Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender, a brave attempt by a Western company to make a series with the tone of an epic anime; other similar attempts have almost exclusively been comedic. It was not entirely successful and while I look back on it with fondness and would certainly rank it amongst my favourite American cartoons, it ought not to be forgotten that the series frustrated me almost as much as it pleased me, and a lot of episodes had me gnashing my teeth at bad pacing, annoying characters, dubious power-ups and poor world-building. But in the end I loved much more than I hated, and this film made it all look so good.
Before its release, fandom was mostly critical of the racial elements. I must say that these were not as I expected. I thought that we would see a Central/South-Asian Fire Nation, maybe some East-Asian monks and everyone else would be white. In fact, while this seems right for the Fire Nation, everyone else was a cosmopolitan mix – although of course all young heroes were white. Dev Patel is an anti-hero, of course, but still virtuous, and we ought not to forget that the original casting had lily-white Jesse McCartney in the role. The Earth Kingdom seemed predominantly East-Asian and Aang himself had an appearance suggesting mixed white and Asian heritage. Indeed, while he is a long way from the series’ Aang, far less playful and yet still seeming even younger, and not so much of a pretty-boy, this ‘Aang’ (‘Ong’? One of many odd pronunciation changes) fit his badly-developed role well, performing acrobatics skilfully and delivering stilted lines with enough directness to just come over as naïve, not wooden.
Unfortunately, his co-stars were not so good. Worst was the guy from Twilight as Sokka. I assume that he was cast purely to try and draw in teenagers, because he was so, so wrong for the part. Quite seriously, if I didn’t already know the plot and world of Avatar, I would have expected a twist to come later on that revealed he was a robot or emotionless alien. His performance was just that flat. And it’s a real shame that apart from one amusing moment where Katara’s water-bending goes wrong at just the wrong moment, all comedy was removed from his character. Not even an extremely pretty Yue whose performance was excellent given the terrible material, could excuse the entirety of her relationship with Sokka being told to the audience by Katara’s voiceover.
Katara herself fit quite well, looking more formidable towards the end, but as yet she has nothing of the strength or warmth of her cartoon counterpart. Dev Patel as Zuko was worse, and he apparently worked in cahoots with the hairdressing department to give us a Zuko who was based entirely in appearance and performance on Ross from Friends. I really could not see past this. Every emotional outpouring seemed to directly channel David Schwimmer.
Uncle Iroh was a rather cool hawklike Asian man, and while there’s much to be said for hidden strength found in a fat, affable old man, this new formidable interpretation worked nicely. I can’t help but think he would make a better Ozai, though, for the man cast in the role looked like some office clerk.
The plot could have worked, as an outline, but it was all so rushed and distant, events unfolding with barely a reaction shot to give the impression the characters were in any way involved. There was no reason to care for any of the characters, and making a plot point of Aang being emotionally repressed is hardly a way to make us sympathise with him. The climax had its moments – some waterbending looked great, and Aang’s moves occasionally made him look incredible, but the crisis of the moon spirit lasted all of a minute, after which the battle was clearly decided, leaving no tension for Aang’s Avatar State moment, which while impressive did very little of any effect.
No tension, no emotional attachment to characters, no climax and no development made for a dull, detached film.
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