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The Last Airbender (2010)

tomatometer

6

Average Rating: 2.9/10
Reviews Counted: 175
Fresh: 11 | Rotten: 164

The Last Airbender squanders its popular source material with incomprehensible plotting, horrible acting, and detached joyless direction.

5

Average Rating: 2.9/10
Critic Reviews: 37
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 35

The Last Airbender squanders its popular source material with incomprehensible plotting, horrible acting, and detached joyless direction.

audience

36

liked it
Average Rating: 2.7/5
User Ratings: 316,052

My Rating

Movie Info

Suspense auteur M. Night Shyamalan takes a break from crafting original screenplays to tell this tale of a 12-year-old boy (Noah Ringer) who provides the last hope for restoring harmony to a land consumed by chaos. In a world balanced on the four nations of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air, people known as the Waterbenders, Earthbenders, Firebenders, and Airbenders have mastered their native elements. Though the masters can each manipulate their native elements, the only one with the power to

Nov 16, 2010

$131.6M

Paramount Pictures - Official Site External Icon

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All Critics (175) | Top Critics (37) | Fresh (11) | Rotten (164) | DVD (5)

One is bored and stupefied by what seems like an eternity of vacuous spectacle, cod-Buddhist tosh and clunking dialogue.

August 12, 2010 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
Top Critic IconTop Critic

[T]he film works so hard to explain its plot developments that it scarcely has any time left over to dramatize them. Exposition has not merely vanquished mimesis, it has burned its homes to the ground and sown salt in its fields.

July 2, 2010 Full Review Source: The Atlantic | Comments (10)
The Atlantic
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Stilted dialogue, wooden acting, glacial pacing, cheesy special effects, tacky-looking sets, ugly costumes, poorly staged and edited action sequences, all shown in murky, cut-rate 3-D.

July 2, 2010 Full Review Source: New York Post | Comments (42)
New York Post
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A dull, boring, poorly acted, limply written and thoroughly unappealing fantasy, featuring bland characters locked in a struggle of no interest.

July 1, 2010 Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | Comments (6)
San Francisco Chronicle
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M. Night Shyamalan's big-screen live-action version of the popular Nickelodeon animated TV series constitutes a form of Chinese water torture in which tin-ear line-readings take the place of drips.

July 1, 2010 Full Review Source: Wall Street Journal
Wall Street Journal
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Please, Hollywood, if there's to be another Airbender movie, hand the job to some efficient hack, and not to a once mesmerizing artist who's lost his way.

July 1, 2010 Full Review Source: TIME Magazine | Comments (83)
TIME Magazine
Top Critic IconTop Critic

[Shyamalan] works so much better with stories that are slower in development, where the atmosphere and tone drive the film, and where you're never quite sure what's going on (though not in the sense where you're completely confused, like this film).

September 25, 2012 Full Review Source: Examiner.com
Examiner.com

This is a kid's movie that doesn't seem to realize that it's a kid's movie.

April 4, 2011 Full Review Source: Movies.com | Comments (2)
Movies.com

Bad acting, overstuffed exposition and running time far too brief for the amount of plot shoved into it reduce The Last Airbender into parody of a big summer film as Shyamalan manages to hit every single fantasy film pothole.

March 29, 2011 Full Review Source: ComingSoon.net
ComingSoon.net

The Last Airbender is swollen with portentous mumbo jumbo and realized in the most simplistic and mundane ways imaginable.

March 9, 2011 Full Review Source: Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema
Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema

The Last Airbender is a horrific mish-mash of genres that follows a depressingly large number of dead ends in adapting its source material.

February 1, 2011 Full Review Source: What Culture | Comments (4)
What Culture

Kiddie-strength action scenes drag the film down, but the kiss of death is Shyamalan's gratuitous use of earth tones and the general dull, drab look of the film. ... drastically reduces the intensity of the 3-D effects

January 31, 2011 Full Review Source: Las Vegas CityLife | Comment (1)

An amateurish mess.

January 18, 2011 Full Review Source: iAfrica.com
iAfrica.com

Is it a masterpiece? Oh god no, but... I'm intrigued to see where the next film goes...

January 4, 2011 Full Review Source: Cinema Crazed | Comments (27)
Cinema Crazed

The constant references to 'benders' can't help but elicit sniggers from British audiences ... the plotting is stodgy, the dialogue stinks and the acting is wooden.

January 4, 2011 Full Review Source: Movie Talk | Comment (1)
Movie Talk

As far as children's entertainment goes (and it is children's entertainment), it could be a lot worse.

December 7, 2010 Full Review Source: Window to the Movies | Comments (4)
Window to the Movies

The film is an unmitigated disaster, a putrid patchwork of the original series stitched together by wretched performances, bad creative decisions and a story that's all exposition, no depth.

December 4, 2010 Full Review Source: IGN DVD | Comments (2)
IGN DVD

Mere words can barely describe the sheer inanity on display.

November 26, 2010 Full Review Source: Aisle Seat
Aisle Seat

It's a nice movie to look at, as long as you ignore the characters, plot, and action.

November 18, 2010 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis | Comments (2)
Movie Metropolis

It seems as if a good film could be made out of The Last Airbender's tale. But this is not that film.

October 21, 2010 Full Review Source: Quickflix | Comments (5)
Quickflix

The characters are completely uninvolving, the narrative incomprehensible for the most part, and the performances seem to reflect the bewilderment of the plot.

September 23, 2010 Full Review Source: At the Movies (Australia) | Comments (11)
At the Movies (Australia)

Why do the water tribe have so much difficulty defeating their fire opponents when the battle takes place on the ocean?

September 22, 2010 Full Review Source: Flicks.co.nz | Comments (14)
Flicks.co.nz

Unspeakably bad dialogue delivered by excruciatingly bad actors in a plot so illogical and stupid it kills unicorns.

September 21, 2010 Full Review Source: Channel 10 Australia | Comments (8)

Shyamalan tells the story like a syndicated news journalist, reporting events with detached direction and lifeless, plot-driven screenwriting.

September 21, 2010 Full Review Source: Moviedex | Comment (1)
Moviedex

The worst part is undoubtedly the script, which clunks and groans all the way under the weight of it's own exposition - tragically and unforgivably, it fails to tell a good story.

September 19, 2010 Full Review Source: The Standard | Comments (3)

The mythology of the series doesn't translate well to the demands of concise big screen storytelling.

September 17, 2010 Full Review Source: MovieTime, ABC Radio National | Comment (1)
MovieTime, ABC Radio National

Audience Reviews for The Last Airbender

Never having seen the tv show i can say this. It was not a bad movie. Wasnt great just interesting. I like fantasy type stuff so this was a good show for me. A pretty unique story thanks to the tv show ive been told. But supposedly the director did not capture it. NOW knowing many people who did watch the show. I hear this was not good. I will try and watch the tv show now to see how bad the movie supposedly was.
June 29, 2010
jmanard52

Super Reviewer

Even as someone who is not familiar with the anime of the same name, you can tell that this has probably little to do with it. The set-up, world-building and idea behind this mythology is great and interesting. There are also a couple of genuinely fun action scenes, especially when the bender work with their elements. The main problem are the characters. Why do the main characters from the ice look Caucasian but everyone around them Inuit? Those two aren't much of actors anyway. Then there is this somewhat flat but often bratty main character. All that makes it hard to care for everything that's going on. The film is still entertaining and offers some nice special effects, gorgeous landscapes and cities. So the result is not as catastrophic as fans of the original may want to make you believe. It's not that great a movie on its own either, though. And the sequel the ending dares to hint at very strongly will probably never happen.
June 3, 2010
ironclad1609

Super Reviewer

    1. Uncle Iroh: Be careful what you wish for, Admiral. History is not always kind to its subjects.
    – Submitted by Rafael M (9 months ago)
    1. Azula: Trust is for fools! Fear is the only reliable way.
    – Submitted by Natasha B (9 months ago)
    1. The Dragon Spirit: Aang, use the ocean. Show them the power of Water.
    – Submitted by Dan Y (11 months ago)
    1. Fire Lord Ozai: You think, my son, is the soldier, these people are calling, The Blue Spirit?
    2. Fire Nation Soldier: Yes.
    – Submitted by Zach S (12 months ago)
    1. Princess Yue: It gave me life. Maybe I can give it back.
    – Submitted by Christian F (12 months ago)
    1. Uncle Iroh: [to Zhao] You stand alone. That has always been your greatest weakness.
    – Submitted by Jed G (12 months ago)

Discussion Forum

Topic Last Post Replies
To any who defend this film 5 days ago 15

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Foreign Titles

  • Die Legende von Aang (DE)
  • The Last Airbender 3D (UK)
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