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Here's my two cents.
Honestly, it was a really good movie. It isn’t spectacular because honestly, you try putting 10 hours worth of story in 2 hours. But it hit all the important twists and had a lot of shout-outs and subtleness to the original cartoon. There were a lot of moments in the movie where I literally said out-loud, “Oh, that’s really clever.” They found a lot of ways to incorporate bits of the cartoon in the film, which probably made absolutely no sense to an audience that have never even heard of the cartoon before — but it made my Avatar-fan cohort and I really, really happy. I didn’t expect much of the film, and it really surprised me. I adored the entire Blue Spirit sequence. It was just so clever. I adored Iroh. I adored the added intensity of having the Firebenders having to find their own source of fire (and the subtle evolution of that). I adored the scenery. The ending credits said that they filmed in Greenland, New Zealand, and Vietnam which was really, really fascinating. (Vietnam, mostly, but I’m biased.) I adored Zhao. I adored the flashback sequences. Those in particular made me cry — which I didn’t expect at all and it was really lovely. I adored Monk Gyatso. It was just so, so good. The bending forms were really gorgeous and the cinematography was just eyecandy. The music, although it was different (and it needed to be, obviously) was really good, too. But you can’t really go wrong with James Newton Howard.
A lot of the lines came right from the series, which felt really awkward in the fast-moving context of the film but it was just a really great tribute. I went into this movie knowing that it wasn’t going to move me like the series did and I came out of it feeling really, really pleased. The Gyatso sequences in particular really surprised and moved me because I never felt that connection with Aang and Gyatso in the original cartoon. I could really go on about the good points I loved about the film, but here’s one that could’ve been a lot better — the writing. A lot of the writing could’ve been a bit done a little more smoothly — I think they, quite frankly, tried to stay true to the overall stories a bit too much and there needs to be some deviations so that it flowed better as a two-hour story. M. Night Shyamalan is very used to having an hour and 40 minute films, and I think he could’ve afforded to bring it to two hours and a half at least to build a bit more character (although if this weren’t based on the original cartoon and a whole new story idea, it would’ve been perfect). Previously, I just kept reading a lot of complaints about how “racist” the film was and I didn’t have that feeling at all watching this film. There is nothing at all racist about this film. There are bad and good people. There are Whites, Blacks, Asians, Native-Americans in this film and I don’t understand why people are angry about this (and please don’t try and explain it to me now; I’ve heard it all). As a general movie, I would give it a 3 out of 5. As a film based on an original cartoon, I would give it a 4 out of 5.
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THE HALLOWFEST 2010
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