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Director M. Night Shyamalan has always been a bit fascinating to me. I can’t think of any other filmmaker that started his career with such promise, as he did back in 1999 with “The Sixth Sense,” only to make every subsequent film a little bit worse than the previous. It almost seems to be a mathematical formula at work. Starting with “Unbreakable,” M. (or should I call him his self-bestowed nickname, Night?) seems to have lost his way more and more until finally we have a dreadful film like “The Happening” where the central conflict consists of Marky Mark Walhberg running away from the wind!

Each film has been less and less financially successful as well, and I have watched with a morbid sense of curiosity of where he is willing to go next in his quest to get back into the good graces of the American movie going public. To see the self-convinced genius flex his ego and show us all how he thinks it should be done is, in itself, a form of entertainment that can be taken with a grain of apathetic salt. Until now, that is.

With his latest attempt, “The Last Airbender,” Shyamalan has gone too far with his mediocre approach at filmmaking and has taken a beloved story and squeezed the life and joy right out of it. Based on a popular Nickelodean Channel animated series, “The Last Airbender” is source material that is full of potential and could have made a live action film to rival “The Lord of the Rings” Trilogy (or at least “The Chronicles of Narnia”). In the hands of Shyamalan, who wrote, produced and directed, as he is wont to do, this version of the fantasy tale is limp and soulless and acts as a glaring illustration of why he should leave other people’s good ideas alone.

“The Last Airbender” is set in a world that has forever been divided into four separate nations: Water, Earth, Fire and Air. People called “Benders” are able to control and manipulate the element of their nation. There is one, the Avatar, who is able to manipulate all four elements and keep the peace and balance between the nations. When the Avatar vanishes, the world is sent into turmoil as the Fire Nation begins a war for global domination.

One hundred years have past since the Avatar’s disappearance when a young Airbender nomad named Aang (Noah Ringer) is found buried in ice near a small village in the Southern Water tribe. Aang is, of course, the missing Avatar who ran away from his responsibilities and finds a world that is suffering because of his unwillingness to accept his destiny. He decides that he must restore harmony to the world, but in order to do so, he must first master all four elements before he can dethrone the malicious Fire Lord Ozai (Cliff Curtis).

There has been an abundance of controversy surrounding the casting of this film with various critics pointing out the fact that a handful of the lead characters are played by Caucasians while the cartoon the film is based on has a decidedly Asian sensibilities. With all the flaws this movie bears, I don’t feel that this is a warranted observation. The fictitious world of “The Last Airbender” is populated with all walks of life and it seems that Shyamalan made a focused effort to place African Americans, Persians and Asian Indians all in the same villages and not divided into the different nations. The fact that the entire cast does not consist of minorities only shouldn’t be an issue.

The film also features some solid actions sequences. The special effects convincingly show us what fire and waterbending would look like in the real world. Shyamalan stages some incredibly long shots that zip in and out of the violence much like director Zack Snyder did with his Spartans in “300.” “The Last Airbender” is fairly successful visually, but losses steam and focus once anybody starts talking. This is a horrible problem to have. Also, the movie was converted into 3D after it was already completed, and it shows. Much like the awkward “Clash of the Titians” a few months back, the effect is minimal and comes across as a sad attempt to get another 3 bucks from the paying audience.

In preparation for this film, I sat and watched all three seasons of the animated series and I am a fan. The story is very well told, the characters fully realized and the action is epic. It is a strange sensation to watch an adaptation of material you are familiar with and feel no connection whatsoever, knowing that you should be invested and energized. Watching “The Last Airbender” was a hollow experience that frustrated me more than anything else. It will not be surprising if this is the only film made of the series and the story will remain untold. Shyamalan has proven himself unable to tell a good story. In regards to the making of this film, he was recently quoted: “My hope is we broke so many rules, we created a new rule.” In this he succeed. The new rule is that M. Night Shyamalan doesn’t get to make any more crappy movies. And if it isn’t a rule, it should be.

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