The aggregated score for The Last Airbender on RottenTomatoes.com is 8%.  Yes, that’s out of 100, and yes, that’s an unusually low score.  Let’s take a look at some other films that RT scored in the single-digit area:  Hilary Swank’s Revelations-inspired horror film, The Reaping; Brendan Fraser’s animal comedy, Furry Vengeance; Roland Emerich’s shameless 10,000 B.C.; Eddie Murphy’s 60th fat-suit film, Norbit.  All four of these actually scored 9% - a point higher that M.Night Shyamalan’s first installation of the Avatar TV series (that’s the original Avatar, not James Cameron’s blue people).  Meanwhile, last year’s over-long, self-indulgent The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - hated by everyone I’ve spoken to who saw it - garnered a 72% on RT.    Even the offensive-to-both-sexes romantic comedy He’s Just Not That Into You scored a 42% - a score nearly five times that of The Last Airbender.

A score of less than  10%, it’s pretty safe to say, means that the collective reviewing community has been deemed the film “trash.”  Yet, The Last Airbender is clearly not comparable in quality to Furry Vengeance, nor is it “trash.”  So what’s happened here?  Why is the industry machine acting so intentionally to tear down yesteryear’s most-loved director of suspense films?  While I adore Shyamalan’s first two films, while I hear great things of his personality as a leader, and while I would readily criticize his more recent work, I think the industry has done him an injustice.  There’s something rotten in Denmark.  Any claims from yours truly about what’s happening would be pure conjecture, so I’ll spare you my theories.  But in this instance (as in most, but particularly so here), take the reviews with a grain of salt...

Ironically, The Last Airbender is Shyamalan’s best film since Unbreakable.  This isn’t saying much, as Signs, The Village, The Lady in the Water and The Happening were all pretty awful.  Yet, even those merit a score greater than 9%.  That is, just as Airbender, none were “trash.”

While theories on why critics are blood-thirsty are mere conjecture, it’s clear why audiences are disappointed by the film.  The Lord of the Rings changed viewer expectations for fantasy, and Shyamalan boldly ignores this precedent.  His fantasy comes from a less dark, more innocent place reminiscent of pre-LOTR fantasy - the fantasy of the 80s, where the protagonist doesn’t bleed even after a fierce beating, where you never see anyone actually fall dead in battle, where the warriors of the great war walk away with no muck on their face or dirt on their clothing.  Think 1985’s Legend with an immaculately made-up Tom Cruise, or the thematically-dark-yet-artistically-clean production design for The NeverEnding Story...

Avatar, let’s remember, is based on a cartoon - and Shyamalan is, for all intents and purposes - adapting a children’s story into a feature film.  Was his target audience the disappointed thirty-something (who expects the brutality and frightfulness of The Lord of the Rings’ Ring Wraiths) or the innocent eight-year-old (who wants to see the cartoon brought to life)?  Food for thought.

I, being a thirty-something, did find the cleanliness of this world a bit distracting.  The simplicity by which these characters are living, and the extreme environments in which they live, dictates a more earthy depiction.  Shyamalan’s likely- (hopefully?-) intentional neglect of these realities was a distraction.  I was willing to look past it, however, and immerse myself in both the folklore of the world, and the wonderful special effects and fantasy of the landscape.  The water-benders’ use of ice during fights was really cool, and the design of Aang’s (the title character) tattoos / light-up head was well-realized.

What is distracting, and deserving of great criticism, was the film’s screenplay.  Perhaps assuming the child target audience wouldn’t “get it” without on-the-nose statements of intent by every character in the story, Shyamalan’s adaptation is choppy and oftentimes embarrassing for his actors - who have no choice but to look like amateurs saying the lines they’ve been given.  Some actors, like Shaun Toub and Dev Patel, manage to rise above their bad dialogue by means of true commitment to their roles (and training).  Less seasoned actors, however, do not fare well.  Cliff Curtis and Noah Ringer suffer most notably, as does Seychelle Gabriel, the white-haired queen.  Shyamalan, a talented director, has been plagued by his weak scripts for the past decade; perhaps it’s time he handed the pen to someone else...

Despite its flaws, and despite the fact that I won’t be recommending it to everyone I know, The Last Airbender is not the heap of trash the reviews are peddling.  It is a return to fantasy as it once was - innocent and wide-eyed - and has its place.  The entire industry needn’t mimic Peter Jackson every time fantasy is made.