"the last airbender"

since this isn't a movie on the shelf, i'll post this here.

i've never seen the cartoon but i am a fan of most of shyamalan's work (the happening sucked) so i wanted to check it out.  it popped up on the netflix IW and we tried to watch it but each time we tried we'd get a black screen with a green bar.  this happened at least 6 times.  it happened with some other movies, too...quite annoying.

well, today we gave it another shot and lo-and-behold...it worked.

first off, i was shocked at how awful the acting was.  the line delivery was emotionless and if there was any emotion shown at all it was like local theater gone bad.  the slumdog kid was most annoying...all he really did was pout and scream.  i think they were trying really hard to keep it simple for the kids, but "toy story" had better acting and dialogue!!

i realized about halfway through that this felt like a syfy channel movie with better FX.  and that's what really sold this movie on me was how cool the FX were.  i also liked the martial arts use to control the elements.  it's kinda cool watching good ole fashioned martial arts moves on screen.

i am a big fan of shyamalan's work.  i loved "the sixth sense", "unbreakable" is genius, "signs" was brilliant, "the village" and "lady in the water" were great (IMO, i know a lot of people hated them, but i really think they are great films)but he lost his way a little with "the happening".  

anyway, "the last airbender" was a big let-down.  i was hoping that night could redeem himself a little, but to no avail.  it was bad.