Dev Patel plays Zuko in The Last Airbender, a film directed by M Night Shyamalan and adapted from the children’s cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Dev Patel plays Zuko in The Last Airbender, a film directed by M Night Shyamalan and adapted from the children’s cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender.

DVD review: The Last Airbender



The Last Airbender

Director: M Night Shyamalan

Starring: Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, Dev Patel

*

Every so often, a movie comes along that shapes the film industry, and the world, forever. Quotes become part of our everyday language; posters line the walls of of student dorms and family homes years after its initial cinematic outing, and its legacy as a classic is cemented instantaneously. The Last Airbender clearly wants to be one of those movies, but it isn't. Not by a long stretch.

It's a mystery at this stage who keeps leaving the once-golden boy of film, M Night Shyamalan, in charge of big-budget productions, but whoever it is deserves to be beaten about the head with one of this film's scripts, or, better yet, a clapper board. Shyamalan's career has become a classic example of a downward spiral; compared with The Sixth Sense, The Last Airbender is the celluloid equivalent of wet cardboard.

Based on the award-winning Nickelodeon cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender, the story is set in a world where the population has been divided into four nations - the tyrannical Fire Nation, which aims to rule the planet with a fiery fist, the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom and the Air Nomads (driven almost to extinction by the Fire Nation and the group to which the film's hero belongs). Of these four nations, it is those who are born with the ability to "bend", or manipulate, an element who are given the greatest amount of respect, although none compare to the legendary Avatar, a mysterious being who has the ability to control all four elements. With this great power comes great responsibility, the Avatar being the only person on the planet who can keep the four nations united peacefully - in part also thanks to his unique ability to converse with the spirits of the world.

The Last Airbender - based on the first season of the cartoon show - begins a century after the unexplained disappearance of the Avatar, whose absence has allowed the volatile Fire Nation to begin their bid for world domination. But when two siblings of a southern Water Tribe, Katara (Nicola Peltz), and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) happen upon the missing hero frozen in time, his re-appearance kick-starts an uprising against the power hungry ruler of the Fire Nation, Lord Ozai. The film didn't meet with the same success as its popular source material. An $318 million (Dh1.2bn) haul at the worldwide box office might sound impressive, but compared with the total production costs of almost $300 million, it looks decidedly less so. It bombed at the critically as well as commercially, currently holding an abysmal six per cent approval rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Given the laughably bad script, stilted acting from every cast member (well, all except the monk who never talks - he's quite good) and mind numbingly boring plot, six per cent is possibly over-generous.

The cast might be made up predominantly of young actors, but age shouldn't be used as an excuse when it comes to talent. Newcomer Noah Ringer, who was cast as the Avatar, Aang, after impressing Shyamalan with his taekwondo skills, is both unconvincing and uninspiring as the supposed saviour of the world. Peltz, as the lead female protagonist and the film's narrator, is just as painful to watch. Both actors can lay the blame partially at the feet of Shyamalan, whose script should never have been allowed to see the light of day. Jackson Rathbone and Dev Patel - the latter in his first major film role since winning over the hearts of audiences for his turn in Slumdog Millionaire - are incredibly misplaced in this fantasy yarn. The bug-eyed, slightly dopey act may have served Rathbone well for his role as a vampire in the Twilight movies, but in the snowy confines of The Last Airbender, he looks amusingly bewildered. As if to balance out the timid and awkward performance delivered by Rathbone, Patel, as Prince Zuko, the son of Lord Ozai, is unintentionally hilarious. His role as the bad guy who just wants to be loved by his dad (excuse us while we don't shed a tear) is akin to that of a pantomime villain.

The Last Airbender is epic alright, but not in the sense that it was intended to be. Should he want to get his career to return to its earlier heights, Shyamalan could start by studying his earlier successes. After this, he's got even further to go to get back there.

Youth YouTuber Programme

The programme will be presented over two weeks and will cover the following topics:

- Learning, scripting, storytelling and basic shots

- Master on-camera presence and advanced script writing

- Beating the algorithm and reaching your core audience

WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?

1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull

2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight

3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge

4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own

5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed

European arms

Known EU weapons transfers to Ukraine since the war began: Germany 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger surface-to-air missiles. Luxembourg 100 NLAW anti-tank weapons, jeeps and 15 military tents as well as air transport capacity. Belgium 2,000 machine guns, 3,800 tons of fuel. Netherlands 200 Stinger missiles. Poland 100 mortars, 8 drones, Javelin anti-tank weapons, Grot assault rifles, munitions. Slovakia 12,000 pieces of artillery ammunition, 10 million litres of fuel, 2.4 million litres of aviation fuel and 2 Bozena de-mining systems. Estonia Javelin anti-tank weapons.  Latvia Stinger surface to air missiles. Czech Republic machine guns, assault rifles, other light weapons and ammunition worth $8.57 million.

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Company%20Profile
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Moon Music

Artist: Coldplay

Label: Parlophone/Atlantic

Number of tracks: 10

Rating: 3/5

INDIA'S%20TOP%20INFLUENCERS
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Match info

Karnataka Tuskers 110-3

J Charles 35, M Pretorius 1-19, Z Khan 0-16

Deccan Gladiators 111-5 in 8.3 overs

K Pollard 45*, S Zadran 2-18

Joker: Folie a Deux

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson

Director: Todd Phillips 

Rating: 2/5

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
 
Started: 2020
 
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
 
Based: Dubai, UAE
 
Sector: Entertainment 
 
Number of staff: 210 
 
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners