Is The Last Airbender (2010) Really That Bad?
Unforgivable dumpster fire, or forgivable misfire?
The Last Airbender is a movie with a reputation. Depending on who you ask, some people might adamantly deny that such a movie was ever released. More ardent fans of the original might even throw a humiliating meme in your face if you should deign to acknowledge the adaptation’s existence.
Released in 2010 and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, it aimed to recapitalize on everything that made the Nickelodeon cartoon great. What viewers saw instead, though, many reflect on as a cinematic disaster heinous enough to make even unironic The Room fans squirm in their seats. But… was it that bad?
Okay, it was pretty bad. I’ll happily admit that this live-action adaptation didn’t do proper justice to the beloved cartoon of my childhood. But is it among the all-time most atrocious movies ever made? Can I sit back and revel in its sheer repugnance? Is each scene such an utter comedic relief for being so tragically ill-conceived that it sends viewers into unceasing fits of laughter?
I’d argue no. Or not quite.
M. Night Shyamalan’s misfire deserves at least triple its 5% critical rotten tomato score. It’s bad, but it’s not quite the high-order blasphemy that so many fans charge. It’s bad, but not “so bad it’s good” bad. It’s not so erratically incohesive that it elicits laughter at every turn; it’s more of a Hallmark Christmas movie sort of bad.
It may have missed the bullseye, but it’s not a nail on a chalkboard agony. Hell, I’ll even grant that it may have missed the dartboard completely, but it’s not so unforgivably discombobulated that it should be relegated to a forgotten dustbin of history like it never happened. Its existence shouldn’t be forgotten… just remembered a few dozen leagues less than fondly.
So where did The Last Airbender go so wrong? As a fellow Philadelphian and unrepentant The Happening apologist, I figured I at least owed the infamous director the chance to grin and bear his critical abomination from beginning to end. And while a grating ordeal in moments, it wasn’t so cataclysmically abominable that I needed to renounce the Avatar poster in my childhood bedroom. Split into a couple of sittings, it was almost palatable.
The castings are… for the most part… decent. The script has its holes, and its writing is only a hollow husk of its source material. I won’t defend the indefensible.
But for me, Dev Patel’s Zuko, Noah Ringer’s Aang, and Nicola Peltz’s Katara work at least as well for me as their replacements in the 2024 Netflix adaptation of the same material. I’d actually argue Peltz’s performance trumps her successor’s attempt at the same character. She’s more expressive, soulful, and likable, even if never characterized in much depth. She’s more maternal.
Aang is a hard character to embody, and Ringer certainly leaves something to be desired. But it wasn’t a career-endingly awful performance; it didn’t need to be the final stop in his short-lived acting career. Neither he nor Netflix’s Gordon Cormier fully fits the bill in my book.
Jackson Rathbone’s photo negative portrayal of Sokka from the animated series, though, stands as a nearly unforgivable sin. But the reimagined Iroh, embodied by Shaun Toub, I’m slightly ashamed to concede works in my eyes. Written about as well as his Netflix live-action counterpart, he exudes a laudable warmth, equanimity, and diplomacy.
Even Cliff Curtis and Aasif Mandvi’s respective Firelord Ozai and Admiral Zhou are commendably well-portrayed.
According to a WatchMojo video, aptly titled “Top 10 Reasons The Last Airbender Film Is Hated,” the number 1 reason is its “Whitewashed Characters.” Echoing popular progressive sentiments about the film, the video argues that “The characters in the film are clearly different races than the ones in the show.”
But what races exactly are the characters in the show? Water, earth, fire, and air? I doubt any critics would be willing to pin precise nationalities on each character in this action-packed world of elements in flux.
It’s true that each of the regions depicted within the show has ways of drawing from different real-world cultures, but Avatar: The Last Airbender isn’t supposed to be based on planet Earth as we know it today. You can’t whitewash characters that come from the arctic-adjacent lands of a fantasy world. If anything, the source material was vaguely insensitive for Florida tanning a tribe 12,000 miles from the equator.
But in this world where large swaths of people have what essentially equates to superpowers, it’s silly to act as though skin tone is a relevant issue. I don’t fault Shyamalan or the original for the areas in which they diverge from “culturally appropriate” depictions. Unless either is purporting to portray our real world, holding it to such standards is ridiculous.
One of the film’s most reviled aspects is the fundamental changes to the source material. Even the names of the main characters are pronounced differently. In what some ironically speculate was a move to be culturally respectful, the names are pronounced in a manner more akin to how they would be overseas, as opposed to how they are in its American anime or live-action cousin. But for fans of the original, the change is jarring enough to take you out of the moment nearly every time one of the beloved main characters’ names is botched.
The film falters most in its rushed storytelling. Where the Netflix series of nearly fifteen years later tasks itself with the mighty feat of turning 20 episodes into 8, Shyamalan was in over his head cramming the same full season into a film less than two hours long. The result is that instead of skipping out on half of the season, it cherry picks a few notable landmarks from the original and darts between them with D-grade pacing.
One of the most flagrant failings of the film is in its lackluster depiction of bending. Much of what made the original so exciting is now achieved with the verve of a deflated balloon. The bending displays are sparse and underwhelming at best and eyebrow-raising at worst.
Though the film boasts a budget even higher than its Netflix successor, there’s hardly a worthwhile special effect in sight in the moments that count. Both adaptations face the enormous challenge of bringing extraordinary material to life, but where Netflix at least tries to craft something thrilling, Shyamalan and his team approach bending as what appears like an afterthought.
The budget that didn’t go into convincing bending went into bringing to life what are, admittedly, some pretty well-realized environments. From the Northern Air Temple to the polar regions, I’d be remiss to not at least award the Shyamalan cinematic rendition a resounding B for its set design. What money remained afterward went into creating a colossal wave scene — which, as a fan of disaster movies, I’ll grant worked at least as well as in the Netflix follow-up’s attempt at the same Northern Siege plot.
As the movie ends and introduces the Azula character in a manner comparable to in the animated version, I can’t help but wonder what would have become of later movies if they’d ever come to fruition.
Would Shyamalan’s sequels have been earth-shattering masterpieces? Unlikely. But the little we’ve seen of Netflix’s Azula so far leaves a discouragingly low bar to hurdle.
The Last Airbender isn’t a dumpster fire, but merely a gentle smolder in an unassuming waste bin. It leaves a questionable smell wafting the block; it can’t be denied. But it’s not quite the “vacate the area immediately, Chernobyl 2.0” cacophony of odors that some claim. It shouldn’t be forever damned to a forgotten void, but put onto a shelf and appreciated as a loveable example of how not to adapt an anime.
But alas, I would die on the hill that The Last Airbender deserves better than the searing hatred of a million millennials. A moderate disliking is more than sufficient in my book. After all, if we forget our past completely, the world can forget all hope of a proper live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender adaptation.