Oh, "The Last Airbender," how do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways:
1. Fight scenes that look like special-effects-enhanced slow-motion yoga routines set to Hans Zimmer music.
2. A lifeless story enhanced by listless performances.
3. A horde of white actors playing the lead roles, while pretty much everyone else appears to be of some sort of middle-eastern descent.
4. A cadre of actors of middle-eastern descent playing villains: Dev Patel ("Slumdog Millionaire,") Shaun Toub (Yensin from "Iron Man"), Aasif Mandvi (the pizza guy who fired Peter Parker in "Spider-Man 2"), and Cliff Curtis ("Live Free or Die Hard"). I'm guessing Sir Ben Kingsley got a phone call from M. Night a couple of months before production started, but he was no doubt too busy with the vastly superior "Prince of Persia" (likely the only time you'll ever hear those last six words grouped together in that order).
5. Why in God's name am I wearing these goofy 3D glasses if there are no 3D effects to speak of?
6. Shyamalan's complete lack of interest in properly choreographing fight sequences, or making them seem interesting, dangerous or exciting. The half-speed kung fu demonstration from the local dojo before the screening was more exciting.
7. The arrow tattoo on Aang's head was really dumb looking...what's that for again?
8. I didn't care about a single character in the film, what they were doing, or where they were going.
9. The fact that Zuko (Patel) had to tell the audience at least a dozen times that he hoped to win back his father's love and take his place in line for the throne.
10. The fact that we hear that Aang left the monks before his training is complete, then get a pointless flashback scene showing us as much just before the film's climax...
11. ...which is so utterly confusing, disjointed, and dark that you don't know what's going on. It's like trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle in the dark. With pieces missing.
12. If you can control water, and the guy who is attacking you can manipulate fire (but has to have fire nearby), why not just use the water to snuff the fire, then fight when you can use your magic and he can't?
13. Same for air.
14. Or land. Dirt can smother fire too.
15. The blue filter that is used for no good reason.
16. After two good films and one watchable one, Shyamalan hasn't directed anything worth seeing in nearly a decade.
17. Even though this is based on a Nickelodeon cartoon series, Shyamalan wrote, directed and produced this turd, which only kind of makes it the first movie he didn't fully create, but his fourth in a row that completely sucks.
18. The slow motion. Yes, again. I really hated that.
19. Did I mention I had to wear nausea-inducing 3D glasses, and THERE WAS NO 3D?
20. Tai chi is great exercise and wonderful for developing discipline and body control. It is not, however, a visually appealing fighting style, even if you throw some fire, dirt, or blobs of water in front of it.
21. These brutal firebenders that took over the rest of the world can't seem to even come close to containing Aang, and that is boring.
22. That they called Aang the "Avatar" (which they did over and over and over) with the softer initial "a" (saying it as "ahvatar"), you know, so as not to confuse it with that movie about those blue aliens.
23. That Jackson Rathbone is appearing in two crappy movies opening the same week.
24. The "Book 1" card that appeared at the beginning, leading me to believe there's a sequel coming...
25. then confirming that fear with a reveal of a character I apparently, as someone completely unfamiliar with the series (as I imagine a fair number of moviegoers will be), am supposed to tremble in fear upon seeing, despite the fact that this person was on the surface a completely innocuous-looking character, and though this person was mentioned previously, there was no context as to why it's important that they're appearing now at the very end.