Oh Dreamworks, you've done it again. You've given away all your best jokes in the trailers. You've hyped up all the big celebrities you've used for voices and then barely have them do anything worthy of their talents. I mean yeesh, you get a big comedienne like Tina Fey and then you give her a character who's not that funny, save a couple side comments. And Brad Pitt's MetroMan is pretty much only in the movie for all the moments you see in the trailer. Seriously, you needed Brad Pitt for this? Oh yeah and write an original song once in a while! Don't just have montages with music from the 80s! And stop having your characters break dance! That was the most pointless tasteless tribute to Micheal Jackson EVER!
Ok, that's getting off on the wrong foot, because Megamind is actually really good. Its fantastically animated, especially the character animation, the famous voice actors are over-hyped but they do a great job, it's mostly well written, even if there are parts where I want to punch the screenwriter, and it's fun and enjoyable and worth a trip to the theater. It's either better or as good as you think it's going to be, because while it is good, it's not fantastic, the ending is just stupid, and it has all the typical traits of Dreamworks film, good and bad, including that it will inevitably make huge amounts of money because it jams huge amounts of advertising down our throat. Also, what's slowly becoming a trait of Dreamworks, believe it or not, is that its cleverly amusing, but Megamind actually isn't that laugh at loud funny.
Dreamworks Animation has had a lock on parody settings for a lot of their films since Shrek, in some cases to its detriment. Ok in Megamind they do a pretty good job creating a new story from what's essentially a parody of Superman, but in general I wish we could go back to making films with stories not parodies of stories, and it doesn't help that all the other animation companies are imitating Dreamworks because imitating Pixar would just be a bit too hard. But as we've seen from How to Train your Dragon and even from the last Shrek movie, sort of, is that Dreamworks, along with everyone else is trying to take a hint from Pixar, is noticing that movies that balance heart and humor work the best. Just couple problems with Dreamworks trying this tactic with Megamind; 1) Pixar has more or less perfected the balance and you have not, and 2) Megamind is a supervillian parody with Will Ferrell, you don't have to be, and frankly you can't be, The Incredibles, but you can at least be funny. But as stated, the best jokes are in the trailer aside from some clever visual gags, the rest of the film is more or less taken rather seriously. The character of Megamind is an amusing character on his own but in the end he's actually a slightly more serious version of Drakken from Kim Possible. The story is actually pretty good even if it borders on cheesy and silly at times, and actually gets a bit complicated, but it still begs the question, Dreamworks, why so serious?
This was actually the problem with Monsters vs Aliens too (though Megamind isn't nearly as bad). For all the action and comic potential of a movie called MONSTERS vs ALIENS, it ended up not being that funny because the movie kept being sidetrack by the main character's love interest story when the guy was so obviously a dick. I know we've gotten on your case Dreamworks that your movies tend to have more goofy jokes than dramatic plot, but you can't just throw drama in for the sake of drama. If your going to make a comedy, make a comedy! You don't have to have drama in movies, for example Airplane is a great comedy, why couldn't MvA be more like that?
Alright one other thing that bugs me. There are some story cliches that I just can't stand anymore. One is overhearing a conversation, getting the wrong idea, and everything gets blow out of proportion as a result. The other one is the disguising/acting/lying that your someone you're not, and then in the final conflict, "Gasp! The betrayal! I how dare you lie / trick me even though it was probably for a good reason!"
Yeah I'm just sick of that. It's only a small part of the Megamind story, but it still bugs me. It's saving grace is that it doesn't save the 'reveal' for the very final climax, they actually get over it pretty quick.
And yeah, the Dreamworks over-advertising is annoying, especially when the jokes given away in the trailers have almost better delivery than they do in the actual movie. On the other hand, there is a whole bunch of story that the trailers don't reference at all, so the story is, believe me, really different than what you're expecting. Wouldn't it surprise you to hear that Metroman's 'retirement' is actually supposed to be a shocking twist in the story? Yeah. But now that I think about, because recent film criticism, or wannabe film criticism, hinges largely on whether the shocking twist is predictable, if Shutter Island is any indication, so maybe because they thought the twist was too obvious they just gave it away in the trailer so know one could say 'I saw that coming' like a pretentious douche. It actually doesn't ruin the story that we know he retires.
So yeah, not perfect and Toy Story 3 has no competition, but it's a lot of fun. Its about on the same level as How to Train Your Dragon and Despicable Me, though you only need to see it in 3d if you're a true financial masochist.
Best hidden 80s reference line: "Pretty sneaky sis."
We Love Movies, Reviews..... and Animation!
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Inception
It's Leo's characters and mood from Shutter Island, the plot of a heist movie, concept on par with Enternal Sunshine of a Spotless mind with the dramatic pace and action of The Dark Knight. All and all it's pretty awesome. Is it worthy of the worship many people are giving it? Well I hate to judge movies in comparison to other movies coming out in a season (one of the best movies of the summer? Obviously), but even on a general film level, its concept is creative, its effects are clever as well as cool to look at, and its story is interesting. It is certainly note worthy, but its just short of a masterpiece. Kinda like Avatar, only less cliche.
Inception has already gotten that reputation of being an intellectual thriller, and while I don't disagree with this, I don't think it's so complicated that it warrants the "warning" that people can't follow it. Christopher Nolan has always had very intricate plots in his movies where he's gone through small details very quickly.
The first twenty minutes give us a jumble of scenes that we're trying to figure out how it fits together, but then we're saved by Ellen Page, the newcomer in the group, and because Ellen Page is a newcomer, everything has to be explained to her, therefore everything (eventually) is explained to us. So as long as you hold on through that first bit, everything else should fall into place.
In the meantime, Inception is truly more action than cerebral. The cerebral part is centrally the movies setting and technology, but the movie is an action thriller.
What's not really a downside but more of a missed opportunity is the very literal portrayal of the dreams. Aside from Ellen Page making Paris fold in half, nothing strange or fantasy-esque happens in the dreams. No one takes advantage of the sheer creativity and wackiness that commences in dreams. Even Freddy Kruger turned himself into a phone. This is what really makes this movie a action thriller and technically less of a science fiction film.
Leo continues to prove his worth as a dramatic actor even though he's essentially doing the same character from Shutter Island. The rest of the cast does a pretty good job, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt (500 days of summer) was especially impressive.
Overall, fun creative action movie with that little something extra. Thanks Chris Nolan.
Inception has already gotten that reputation of being an intellectual thriller, and while I don't disagree with this, I don't think it's so complicated that it warrants the "warning" that people can't follow it. Christopher Nolan has always had very intricate plots in his movies where he's gone through small details very quickly.
The first twenty minutes give us a jumble of scenes that we're trying to figure out how it fits together, but then we're saved by Ellen Page, the newcomer in the group, and because Ellen Page is a newcomer, everything has to be explained to her, therefore everything (eventually) is explained to us. So as long as you hold on through that first bit, everything else should fall into place.
In the meantime, Inception is truly more action than cerebral. The cerebral part is centrally the movies setting and technology, but the movie is an action thriller.
What's not really a downside but more of a missed opportunity is the very literal portrayal of the dreams. Aside from Ellen Page making Paris fold in half, nothing strange or fantasy-esque happens in the dreams. No one takes advantage of the sheer creativity and wackiness that commences in dreams. Even Freddy Kruger turned himself into a phone. This is what really makes this movie a action thriller and technically less of a science fiction film.
Leo continues to prove his worth as a dramatic actor even though he's essentially doing the same character from Shutter Island. The rest of the cast does a pretty good job, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt (500 days of summer) was especially impressive.
Overall, fun creative action movie with that little something extra. Thanks Chris Nolan.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
As a Child, As an Adult: Review of Antz
It's one of those revelation things when you see the same movie under different circumstances.
I saw the movie Antz well after I had seen A Bugs Life. Younger, I liked Antz but I didn't love it, to me A Bug's Life was the superior film. It was funnier, it was more colorful, it had a really cool epic ending, and it didn't have the world's most unsubtle moral message shoved in my face ever 10 minutes. But ever since then I have seen Antz more highly praised than a Bug's Life and I didn't understand why. I was aware that Antz was more adult oriented, but I just thought that was because of the largest emphasis on romance and the more graphic imagery of the war between the ants and termites.
That is until I re-saw a Bug's Life and Antz recently. I'll still support that Bug's Life is the better family film; it' s still funny and kids certainly enjoy it more and is largely underrated because it is buried under the rest of Pixar superior crop. But I admit as an adult I enjoyed Antz more, and it's completely due to one circumstance. I now know who Woody Allen is. The character of Z (I get the title now) inhabiting the typical Woody Allen character of a neurotic, complaining, depressed, insecure, dissatisfied with his life and his world persona makes the entire film.
But probably why the movie didn't appeal to me as a kid as mainly due to one thing, it wasn't that funny. That sounds terrible considering I dislike that recent mainstream CGI films are only ever conceptual parodies of other films and only focus on comedy and ignore other genres and aspects of films. In fact it's probably only film I've found more cliche as a child than as a adult. As a kid because I didn't get any of the Woody Allen in jokes I was alarmingly aware of the blatant unsubtle moral message of the film (think for yourself, it's about the team, yadda yadda). But as an adult I was so entertained by the character of Z (Woody Allen) that it didn't bother me, and I found because I've since watched many more films, the Antz story telling technique is better than most.
The film also gets a lot of credit for being the first mainstream CGI film outside of Pixar and the first film to start the animation branch at Dreamworks. The animation itself is interesting but slightly crude, though not nearly as bad as the Clone wars.
But Antz as a story is really only worthwhile as a parody of Woody Allen, granted a very good parody, but for those who don't know who Woody Allen is, the film may still be a good time killer but is largely just a cliche.
I saw the movie Antz well after I had seen A Bugs Life. Younger, I liked Antz but I didn't love it, to me A Bug's Life was the superior film. It was funnier, it was more colorful, it had a really cool epic ending, and it didn't have the world's most unsubtle moral message shoved in my face ever 10 minutes. But ever since then I have seen Antz more highly praised than a Bug's Life and I didn't understand why. I was aware that Antz was more adult oriented, but I just thought that was because of the largest emphasis on romance and the more graphic imagery of the war between the ants and termites.
That is until I re-saw a Bug's Life and Antz recently. I'll still support that Bug's Life is the better family film; it' s still funny and kids certainly enjoy it more and is largely underrated because it is buried under the rest of Pixar superior crop. But I admit as an adult I enjoyed Antz more, and it's completely due to one circumstance. I now know who Woody Allen is. The character of Z (I get the title now) inhabiting the typical Woody Allen character of a neurotic, complaining, depressed, insecure, dissatisfied with his life and his world persona makes the entire film.
But probably why the movie didn't appeal to me as a kid as mainly due to one thing, it wasn't that funny. That sounds terrible considering I dislike that recent mainstream CGI films are only ever conceptual parodies of other films and only focus on comedy and ignore other genres and aspects of films. In fact it's probably only film I've found more cliche as a child than as a adult. As a kid because I didn't get any of the Woody Allen in jokes I was alarmingly aware of the blatant unsubtle moral message of the film (think for yourself, it's about the team, yadda yadda). But as an adult I was so entertained by the character of Z (Woody Allen) that it didn't bother me, and I found because I've since watched many more films, the Antz story telling technique is better than most.
The film also gets a lot of credit for being the first mainstream CGI film outside of Pixar and the first film to start the animation branch at Dreamworks. The animation itself is interesting but slightly crude, though not nearly as bad as the Clone wars.
But Antz as a story is really only worthwhile as a parody of Woody Allen, granted a very good parody, but for those who don't know who Woody Allen is, the film may still be a good time killer but is largely just a cliche.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Despicable Me
It's not Toy Story 3, by a long shot. It doesn't reach for the stars in any way, but you know, it's ok that it doesn't. There's something to be said for a film succeeding in what it's trying to be.
Universal doesn't have its own animation branch, it just co-produces with other studios, usually smaller independent ones like Focus Features. This film is brought to us by newcoming animated studio Illumination Entertainment, started by Chris Meledandri, previous head of 20th Century Fox Animation, makers of such films as the Ice Age trilogy and Horton Hears a Who, and the Simpsons Movie. Some rumored projects of Illumination are 'the lorax' (sigh) and Where's Waldo. So Illumination Entertainment has given us a film that doesn't try to be anything groundbreaking or even extraordinarily creative but accomplishes its goals as a silly children's movie with heart. But in a way it's disappointing that an animated film from a new studio doesn't try to do anything new and out there since it has no reputation to start with. Like the rest it doesn't look at animation with any ambition to make new and interesting films by expanding the art form that is animation, it's basically just doing what all the other studios are doing, making good looking CGI with a dreamworks parody inspired premise and humor with a touch of emotional story telling inspired by Pixar. It seems the only thing it respects about animation is it ability to bring in muchas muchas bucks. I mean Julie andrews for a character that has barely 5 lines? Way unnecessary. But at least the animation itself is very impressive and of a good quality as well as having an interesting design, particularly the space ships.
But muchas dollars it certainly got over its first weekend, though that's not surprising as its an animated family film, and considering its competition. The new monster action thriller predators went almost completely under the radar, and it easily topped last weeks overrated and overpaid cultural embarrassment that is the Twilight movies and the horrifying fantasy adaption disaster that was Last Airbender.
If you've seen a trailer you know the story. It's the Grinch or 'cold hearted man has his heart changed when he interacts with children' story, except this time his character is a parody of a supervillian. At first glance you might think the supervillian side really is just a character trait or a fuel for parody humor while the real shape of the story is around Gru's interaction with the orphan children he adopts, but there's a lot of detail that goes into the super villian aspect of the story, and it does make for some cool animation designs.
Gru's character makes the entire movie. He's an amusing character that's surprisingly stable, and Steve Carell does a fantastic job bringing him to life. But the 3 little girls aren't interesting enough as real characters themselves and border on annoying. (The middle one, eccentric Edith in the only slightly interesting girl, the other two just play the roles of the little cutsy one and older defensive one) As a result your feelings for the girls are completely through Gru, they annoy you when they annoy Gru, and you care about them when Gru cares about them, but you feel nothing for them personally. But my god, the character of Vector, Gru's archrival, is just irritating all the way through. Sorry Jason Segal.
On a humor level, aside from the parody supervillian James bond-esque background, it's not laugh at loud funny, but it is silly enough for kids but on a level that can still relatively entertain adults and at least it's not reference jokes. There's also the matter of the minions, the little yellow babbling creatures added to give the film more child level silly humor as well as great toys to market. I usually hate this in children's films, but I have to admit, the minions are funny and they give a lot of life to the film. Even the silly physical humor they do is funny enough but doesn't drag on so long that it becomes unbearably annoying. They are just little touches to make a scene more funny.
This is not a film to look at incredibly deeply. No character including Gru is extremely developed. It's humor and emotion are right on the screen, but it terms of story you can see how everything can be expanded on. What is Gru's relationship with the Scientist, why did he want to be a supervillian, why are all Gru supervillian exploits so few and minor, where did he get the Minions, why does Vector want to be a supervillian, what's margo's emotional turmoil, whats the deal with Gru's mom? All of these could have added to make a bigger and possibly more interesting story, but maybe it's best that they didn't. Ultimately it is a story we heard before and had they tried to make even more serious than it was, it probably would have come off pretentious and unnecessary.
If I was a fan of 3D, I would give this film a lot of credit for its great use and quality of 3D. It does a couple of the 'leaping at the audience' gags but not too many and there's a short at the beginning of the credits that's clever use for the 3D, but not as good as Pixar's short Night and Day that was shown at the beginning of Toy Story 3. But I'm not a fan of 3D, I don't think it's worth the extra 4 bucks and simply find it a means of extortion, and frankly most of the time while you're watching the movie you can't tell the difference. But at least this was shot for 3D, it's not one of the cop outs that make it during post production (clash of the titans, last airbender)
There's really no reason to see this movie if you don't have kids or don't care about animation. Everything in here has been done (a lot of it in Disney's Kim Possible) The story is generic, but the silly humor and character of Gru make this a fun family film, but probably not suitable for a repeated viewing. Also the animation is well done.
Universal doesn't have its own animation branch, it just co-produces with other studios, usually smaller independent ones like Focus Features. This film is brought to us by newcoming animated studio Illumination Entertainment, started by Chris Meledandri, previous head of 20th Century Fox Animation, makers of such films as the Ice Age trilogy and Horton Hears a Who, and the Simpsons Movie. Some rumored projects of Illumination are 'the lorax' (sigh) and Where's Waldo. So Illumination Entertainment has given us a film that doesn't try to be anything groundbreaking or even extraordinarily creative but accomplishes its goals as a silly children's movie with heart. But in a way it's disappointing that an animated film from a new studio doesn't try to do anything new and out there since it has no reputation to start with. Like the rest it doesn't look at animation with any ambition to make new and interesting films by expanding the art form that is animation, it's basically just doing what all the other studios are doing, making good looking CGI with a dreamworks parody inspired premise and humor with a touch of emotional story telling inspired by Pixar. It seems the only thing it respects about animation is it ability to bring in muchas muchas bucks. I mean Julie andrews for a character that has barely 5 lines? Way unnecessary. But at least the animation itself is very impressive and of a good quality as well as having an interesting design, particularly the space ships.
But muchas dollars it certainly got over its first weekend, though that's not surprising as its an animated family film, and considering its competition. The new monster action thriller predators went almost completely under the radar, and it easily topped last weeks overrated and overpaid cultural embarrassment that is the Twilight movies and the horrifying fantasy adaption disaster that was Last Airbender.
If you've seen a trailer you know the story. It's the Grinch or 'cold hearted man has his heart changed when he interacts with children' story, except this time his character is a parody of a supervillian. At first glance you might think the supervillian side really is just a character trait or a fuel for parody humor while the real shape of the story is around Gru's interaction with the orphan children he adopts, but there's a lot of detail that goes into the super villian aspect of the story, and it does make for some cool animation designs.
Gru's character makes the entire movie. He's an amusing character that's surprisingly stable, and Steve Carell does a fantastic job bringing him to life. But the 3 little girls aren't interesting enough as real characters themselves and border on annoying. (The middle one, eccentric Edith in the only slightly interesting girl, the other two just play the roles of the little cutsy one and older defensive one) As a result your feelings for the girls are completely through Gru, they annoy you when they annoy Gru, and you care about them when Gru cares about them, but you feel nothing for them personally. But my god, the character of Vector, Gru's archrival, is just irritating all the way through. Sorry Jason Segal.
On a humor level, aside from the parody supervillian James bond-esque background, it's not laugh at loud funny, but it is silly enough for kids but on a level that can still relatively entertain adults and at least it's not reference jokes. There's also the matter of the minions, the little yellow babbling creatures added to give the film more child level silly humor as well as great toys to market. I usually hate this in children's films, but I have to admit, the minions are funny and they give a lot of life to the film. Even the silly physical humor they do is funny enough but doesn't drag on so long that it becomes unbearably annoying. They are just little touches to make a scene more funny.
This is not a film to look at incredibly deeply. No character including Gru is extremely developed. It's humor and emotion are right on the screen, but it terms of story you can see how everything can be expanded on. What is Gru's relationship with the Scientist, why did he want to be a supervillian, why are all Gru supervillian exploits so few and minor, where did he get the Minions, why does Vector want to be a supervillian, what's margo's emotional turmoil, whats the deal with Gru's mom? All of these could have added to make a bigger and possibly more interesting story, but maybe it's best that they didn't. Ultimately it is a story we heard before and had they tried to make even more serious than it was, it probably would have come off pretentious and unnecessary.
If I was a fan of 3D, I would give this film a lot of credit for its great use and quality of 3D. It does a couple of the 'leaping at the audience' gags but not too many and there's a short at the beginning of the credits that's clever use for the 3D, but not as good as Pixar's short Night and Day that was shown at the beginning of Toy Story 3. But I'm not a fan of 3D, I don't think it's worth the extra 4 bucks and simply find it a means of extortion, and frankly most of the time while you're watching the movie you can't tell the difference. But at least this was shot for 3D, it's not one of the cop outs that make it during post production (clash of the titans, last airbender)
There's really no reason to see this movie if you don't have kids or don't care about animation. Everything in here has been done (a lot of it in Disney's Kim Possible) The story is generic, but the silly humor and character of Gru make this a fun family film, but probably not suitable for a repeated viewing. Also the animation is well done.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Last Airbender Review
What we have is a cliff notes version of the first season of the well regarded Avatar the Last Airbender animated series on Nickelodeon, and not a very good one.
For the story, it would take several paragraphs to even explain the entire premise, but essentially the movie takes place in an alternate reality asian inspired world where people have the ability to magically manipulate one of the four elements depending on which country they belong to, either water, earth, fire or air. The Avatar is the spiritual guide to this world and is the only one who can manipulate, or bend, all four elements to keep the world in balance. In this world the Fire nation has started a war so the Avatar, currently a twelve year old boy, and his friends go on a journey to save the world.
In the animated series, this is a great funny epic action adventure, so who do they get to direct it? Dark mood piece director M Night Shyamalan. Who thought this was a good idea? I don't even care that M Night Shyamalan's past three movies were basically disappointments, it is that he hasn't done anything in this genre before. And his style of direction is clearly a bad match with this movie.
The movie is supposed to be a summary of the first season of the series, so needless to say to do a whole series in one movie length is tough, but the movie doesn't even seem like it is trying. The initial story and the fantasy world it takes place in has the potential for an epic on the level of Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, but what we get is a jumble of half formed scenes pieced together with rather irritating voice over narration. So even though the art direction is impressive, the cinematography is nice and the music is great, everything in the story and script is rushed and fragmented and nothing is given time to develop. Which also gives rise to a question, if everything had to be rushed, why was this film only 90 minutes? When was there a fantasy film that lasted only 90 minutes?
The CGI of the magic element fung fu fighting, aka the only reason this movie was made to be live action in the first place, is less impressive then it should be for this budget, but it is ok enough to be regarded, as again, the only reason only reason this movie was made in live action. Yes, watching CGI elements is impressive for about 30 seconds, but it is not synchronized well enough to the actors kung fu-esque actions movies to make exciting action. The actors just look like they are making a bunch a silly gestures and then when they're done, the elements just fly out of nowhere, and not very quickly or smoothly either. While I am against reviewing movies by comparing them to their source material, it was something that works well when your medium is animation, and seems like a good concept for cool CGI for a live action movie in theory, but just doesn't work.
Leading up to this movie there was a great deal of controversy about the casting of the main characters. For an obviously Asian inspired world, people believe it was inappropriate that M Night Shyamalan cast Caucasian actors for title roles. I initially was not sure how I felt about this, but I did feel uncomfortable that the actors picked had barely been in any movies before with the exception of the villian characters. Now having actually watched the movie, I agree with this. The white actors look very out of place in their Asian style robes while all the background characters themselves are in fact Asian, and while it may not have been the directors intent, it does make the film feel whitewashed. But even more out of place is the acting itself. I can hardly blame the actors for their performances considering the script and directing they had to work with, but the acting is fairly disappointing because M Night Shyamalan picked very inexperienced actors.
A criticism of the fans of the original series is that for some reason they chose to pronounce all the names with the Japanese phonetics, so none of the names sound like what they sound like in the series. It is a rather unimportant decision, but it is curious why this decision was made at all.
But where is it that the movie truly fails is the decision to make this movie in the first place. Making a live action version of Avatar never needed to be done. I resent Hollywood's attitude that every cartoon needs to be made into a live action version to verify it. (Yes Yes, they make it because people will pay for it, yes lets all be completely pessimistic about our fellow man) To fit a season's worth of information from an animated show into a 90 minute movie, directing an action fantasy with a director who has only done dark low action dramas with amateur actors, none of these were the proper tools to start with. You need a better reason to make a movie then "Gee that will look cool with CGI." Maybe this could have worked with a different director, a cohesive story with developement and better actors, but now we will never know.
Though I have had to come to grips that those who have never seen the animated series tend to like the movie. Though it really just bothers me more because everything that they like is everything that originally came from the series, except that the series did it better. I plead that at least for those who liked the movie to watch the series. Not just because the series is better, but hey, you'll get to find out what comes next without waiting!
For the story, it would take several paragraphs to even explain the entire premise, but essentially the movie takes place in an alternate reality asian inspired world where people have the ability to magically manipulate one of the four elements depending on which country they belong to, either water, earth, fire or air. The Avatar is the spiritual guide to this world and is the only one who can manipulate, or bend, all four elements to keep the world in balance. In this world the Fire nation has started a war so the Avatar, currently a twelve year old boy, and his friends go on a journey to save the world.
In the animated series, this is a great funny epic action adventure, so who do they get to direct it? Dark mood piece director M Night Shyamalan. Who thought this was a good idea? I don't even care that M Night Shyamalan's past three movies were basically disappointments, it is that he hasn't done anything in this genre before. And his style of direction is clearly a bad match with this movie.
The movie is supposed to be a summary of the first season of the series, so needless to say to do a whole series in one movie length is tough, but the movie doesn't even seem like it is trying. The initial story and the fantasy world it takes place in has the potential for an epic on the level of Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, but what we get is a jumble of half formed scenes pieced together with rather irritating voice over narration. So even though the art direction is impressive, the cinematography is nice and the music is great, everything in the story and script is rushed and fragmented and nothing is given time to develop. Which also gives rise to a question, if everything had to be rushed, why was this film only 90 minutes? When was there a fantasy film that lasted only 90 minutes?
The CGI of the magic element fung fu fighting, aka the only reason this movie was made to be live action in the first place, is less impressive then it should be for this budget, but it is ok enough to be regarded, as again, the only reason only reason this movie was made in live action. Yes, watching CGI elements is impressive for about 30 seconds, but it is not synchronized well enough to the actors kung fu-esque actions movies to make exciting action. The actors just look like they are making a bunch a silly gestures and then when they're done, the elements just fly out of nowhere, and not very quickly or smoothly either. While I am against reviewing movies by comparing them to their source material, it was something that works well when your medium is animation, and seems like a good concept for cool CGI for a live action movie in theory, but just doesn't work.
Leading up to this movie there was a great deal of controversy about the casting of the main characters. For an obviously Asian inspired world, people believe it was inappropriate that M Night Shyamalan cast Caucasian actors for title roles. I initially was not sure how I felt about this, but I did feel uncomfortable that the actors picked had barely been in any movies before with the exception of the villian characters. Now having actually watched the movie, I agree with this. The white actors look very out of place in their Asian style robes while all the background characters themselves are in fact Asian, and while it may not have been the directors intent, it does make the film feel whitewashed. But even more out of place is the acting itself. I can hardly blame the actors for their performances considering the script and directing they had to work with, but the acting is fairly disappointing because M Night Shyamalan picked very inexperienced actors.
A criticism of the fans of the original series is that for some reason they chose to pronounce all the names with the Japanese phonetics, so none of the names sound like what they sound like in the series. It is a rather unimportant decision, but it is curious why this decision was made at all.
But where is it that the movie truly fails is the decision to make this movie in the first place. Making a live action version of Avatar never needed to be done. I resent Hollywood's attitude that every cartoon needs to be made into a live action version to verify it. (Yes Yes, they make it because people will pay for it, yes lets all be completely pessimistic about our fellow man) To fit a season's worth of information from an animated show into a 90 minute movie, directing an action fantasy with a director who has only done dark low action dramas with amateur actors, none of these were the proper tools to start with. You need a better reason to make a movie then "Gee that will look cool with CGI." Maybe this could have worked with a different director, a cohesive story with developement and better actors, but now we will never know.
Though I have had to come to grips that those who have never seen the animated series tend to like the movie. Though it really just bothers me more because everything that they like is everything that originally came from the series, except that the series did it better. I plead that at least for those who liked the movie to watch the series. Not just because the series is better, but hey, you'll get to find out what comes next without waiting!
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