Shyamalan’s Airbender is the last straw for critics

The former critical darling M Night Shyamalan has found himself at the centre of controversy with his latest film The Last Airbender - and not just because of the brickbats thrown at it by the critics (see the reviews below).
 
Shyamalan, the Indian-born, Philadelphia-raised director who found fame with The Sixth Sense, caused an outcry after he chose white actors (Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz and Jackson Rathbone) to play three of the biggest parts in his film adaptation of the hugely popular children's TV series Avatar.  

This Avatar - nothing to do with James Cameron's far more successful blockbuster of the same name - was about four different races battling for supremacy in a future world where civilisation has broken down.

However, The Last Airbender has offered a decent role to the British-born Asian actor Dev Patel, playing his first movie role since the Oscar-laden Slumdog Millionaire catapulted him to international attention two years ago.
 
In The Last Airbender, which is released in UK cinemas this Friday, Patel plays Prince Zuko, the son of the film's villain, Fire Lord Ozai, played by Once Were Warriors star Cliff Curtis, who is Maori.
 
This week Patel spoke out against the stereotyping of Asian actors. Despite being "raring to go" following Slumdog's success, the 20-year-old actor said that most parts he has been offered since then have been limited to terrorists, taxi drivers and "the goofy Indian sidekick".
 
But given that the The Last Airbender has been slated for its appalling special effects, last-minute switch to 3D and a confusing narrative, Patel may be wishing that he had been bypassed for this role too.
 
As Richard Corliss put it for Time: "The dearth of racially appropriate casting in the US simply means that fewer Asians were humiliated by appearing in what is surely the worst botch of a fantasy epic since Ralph Bakshi's animated desecration of The Lord of the Rings back in 1978. The actors who didn't get to be in The Last Airbender are like the passengers who arrived too late to catch the final flight of the Hindenburg."
 
WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING: Peter Bradshaw, the Guardian: "At the cinema showing I attended, the British crowd reacted derisively at key dialogue moments. One wise old lady says solemnly to a young man: 'I could tell at once that you were a bender, and that you would realise your destiny.' One character tells another wonderingly: 'There are some really powerful benders in the Northern Water Zone.' Each time, the response from the auditorium was deafeningly immature, and brought many of us to a state of nervous collapse."

Roger Ebert, the Chicago Sun-Times: "The Last Airbender is an agonising experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented." (Half a star out of five)Ian Nathan, Empire: "It's when anyone speaks that it turns to stone. Unfathomably, in adapting a cartoon Shyamalan has written a cartoon. The script is a childish muddle of voiceover and rampant exposition, its young elementals robot-reading stage directions to one another: 'We must go.' 'Yes, we must go.'... Only Slumdog's Dev Patel reveals any bite as the petulant Fire Prince." (2/5 stars)

AO Scott, the New York Times: "At his best - and even in the best parts of his weaker movies, like The Village or Signs  — Mr Shyamalan is a master of the unseen, but 3D, almost by definition, has no use for what the viewer can't see. So the best way to watch The Last Airbender is probably with your eyes closed."

Nigel Floyd, Time Out: "Devotees of the original Nickleodeon animated TV series swear this film adaptation is a travesty of its meaningful, allegorical themes – but most of them were aged between six and 12 when they first saw it. Either way, if your actual or mental age exceeds this, steer well clear." (1/5 stars) ·