Ok, The Last Airbender. In short, not as bad as the reviews, but definately not as good as it could have been. The visual effects were gorgeous, of course. Though putting it in 3D was unnecessary. The acting was…alright. The guy who played Sokka was hooooooooot but was kind of flat. But then again, he’s in Twilight so you can’t really expect him to be THAT good. Hated the girl who played Katara. She didn’t bother to ever explain her actions and almost always have a vacant stare. I also didn’t like how everyone was so friggin’ grim. The show came with a hefty dose of humor and the movie definately did not. From a purely entertainment point of view, however, I was quite pleased. Details were skipped, of course, but the story could be followed fairly easily. Go and see it, but don’t expect it to follow the show exactly. Almost no movies based off of shows or books do.
Also went and saw Team America last night Central Cinema. What else can you say about that movie aside from FUCK YEAH!
From what I understand the story was harder to follow for people who weren’t already familiar with the concepts from the cartoon.
How did you feel about the exposition? The movie had a terrible case of telling no showing.
I love Jackson Rathbone (teehee ‘bone’)! He makes Twilight bearable for me.
@Long P – I agree completely that they overtold the story instead of letting it float on their own. It wasn’t as bad as The Golden Compass or the last two Harry Potter movies.
One of my biggest gripes lately about directors who remake books or TV shows into movies: They’re gorgeous, but dumbed down and broken, storywise. As you said, it could be hard to follow for people who aren’t familiar with the story. The Golden Compass just assumed everyone had read the book and took a lot of things for granted. Also, The Golden Compass (and indeed, the series in general) were NOT children’s books (hello, bear eating his dead best friend much?) but the movie was made into one and now they won’t make the other two because there’s no kid friendly way to go about the rest of the issues in the story. That was a bit of a tangent. Back to the point. It would have all been a lot easier on the story if they’d just taken the plot at the beginning a littler slower. An extra five or ten minutes to fill in those in the audience wouldn’t have hurt at all. Even for people who have seen the show would have benefited from having the story explained. Part of the reason I like going to movies based off books and tv shows I like is that I want to see the story retold on a larger, more budgeted medium. I know how the story is going to end so I’m not looking for any big surprises or new material necessarily (unless it’s stated a reboot like Star Trek was). That’s why Lord of the Rings was so awesome. Peter Jackson didn’t skimp the details and stuck close to the books. Wherever he changed the story (the elves showing up on Helm’s Deep for instance), it didn’t have long term repercussions on the plot. You don’t have to break the plot in order to make your mark as a director known on a pre-written story.
I’d love to write more but I’m getting a cold and can’t think all that clearly right now. Also, my boss is probably getting annoyed at me for doing this instead of working.