Last night we did something that we said we’d never do again: we hit the bricks and headed to a midnight showing of The Last Airbender. Now, I’m a huge fan of the series and further, have in the past really appreciated Shyamalan for what he does. He had me up until The Village, then promptly threw all that good will away with all the other dumpster babies soon as he dropped the steaming cinematic turd-party that was Lady In The Water. Or The Happening. Also, be advised: yes, I’m sensitive to all the racebending issues, and I went in with my eyes open on that accord. I know, I was supposed to boycott the film. I didn’t.

So. How’d Manny Shammy do in handling this beloved geek property?

Tell, Don’t Show

M. Night needs to realize that he’s a director, because as of this film, he’s in writer jail. The good warden of this jail should take away Manoj’s pen, and stat. This is not the same dude that wrote Sixth Sense. Something happened to him. Brain trauma, maybe. Could be that he drank, like, a hot microwaved cup of drain cleaner after watching a DVD copy of Lady In The Water, which was a movie that was so bad, I wanted to force feed myself my own body in a never-ending Sisyphean cycle of consumption and misery. Maybe an oak tree headbutted him after the clotting miscarriage that was The Happening, angry at what he had done to sully the good name of plants all over this little blue-green marble.

I don’t know what happened, but somehow, his writing has gotten worse. He telegraphs everything. He apparently thought this was a radio show, not a film, because everything is spoken, described, explained. Did he forget that, in a film, you can just… y’know, show the shit that’s happening? You don’t need to explain it with an overdrawn voiceover ever ten seconds? They go to the Southern Water Tribe, and they tell you the whole step of the way: “Oh, we’re going to the Southern Water Tribe now.” And they remind you that Aang is the Avatar every 4.5 seconds. “I’m the Avatar!” “He’s the Avatar.” “But you’re the Avatar!” “Malkovich Malkovich!”

Hot damn, Sokka actually tells people when he’s going to go to the bathroom. And not in a funny way. He just tells them. And us. Do we really need to know Sokka’s bathroom habits? For reals?

The Requisite Shyamalan Cameo

You know how people were irate over the fact that some of the most beloved bits of the show weren’t going to make their way into the movie? You sonsabitches should’ve just kept your mouth shut. Because Manny? He listened. Oh, boy, did he listen. Can you say, “Reshoots,” boys and girls?

Everybody loves the Cabbage Merchant? Right? From the cartoon? “My cabbages!”

He’s in there.

And he’s played by M. Night Shyamalan.

He hams it up. It is, in a word, embarrassing.

Worse, because Manoj is so deeply in love with the smell of his own stink, he shows up every ten minutes. The main characters at least have a goddamn Sky Bison to get them from Point A to Point B. How is it, then, that Manny the Cabbage Merchant travels as swiftly?

Also: the cabbages? CGI. Couldn’t get real cabbages, could you? Farmer’s markets were closed during the reshoots? We did not see the film in 3D, because I hear that’s the worst way to see this film (which, at this point, is like saying, “The worst way to eat a pile of gopher diarrhea is with a dirty spoon”), but I hear that the cabbages are one of the few things in this film that get proper 3D treatment. Not the Fire Nation boats, not the arrows, not Appa the Sky Bison, no. All that falls aside. Cabbages? Cabbages get cash money.

Goddamn you, M. Night. Goddamn you big.

The Deepest Racebending Poopchutepalooza

All right. Okay. You win, racebenders.

After seeing this film, by gum and by golly, you have yourselves a case.

Get this.

The Fire Nation is offered as a rough analog to India, right?

And Shyamalan is himself Indian.

You’d think this would be a no brainer.

But, instead, it’s a, “Holy Crap, Someone Really Needs A Brainer.”

He puts Indians and Native Americans in the Fire Tribe. He conflates one type of “Indian” with the other type of “Indian.” Some of them speak with that India accent, others speak with the Big Chief Two Deers Running Dances With Wolves accent.

Oh, and the Earth Kingdom characters all speak with a really comical Chinese accent. Like, this is fake “Yellow Peril” stuff. It’s as bad as those bug-eyed amphibian Trade Commission dudes from the new Star Wars movie. This is Charlie Chan shit.

It’s All Doom And Gloom

Nary a hint, nor a whiff, of humor in this movie. It’s droll. Dead. Bleak. Blank.

And, in fact, it’s actually a big ol’ downer.

Listen, spoiler warning.

Okay? From here on out, it’s Awooga, Awooga, Dive, Dive, Dive.

We good?

Can I go? I’mma go.

Characters die in this film.

It’s like, M. Night was clearly trying to put a throughline in this movie about discipline and sacrifice, and blah blah blah, what does victory cost? It’s like — where’s the message of peace? Of hope? Of happiness?

Let me reiterate: characters die in this film.

Characters you love.

Like, for instance, Iroh. Iroh eats it. Killed by the Water Tribe, no less, as he’s trying to help them. But the corker? The kicker? The real eye-opener?

Appa. Appa the Sky Bison dies. During the climax, a big ball of fire from one of those Fire Nation dreadnoughts catches him right in his face (a face, by the way, that looks not entirely unlike what would happen if Don Rickles made love to and had a baby with a lemur — like, say, Momo). Appa catches fire. Appa falls into the water, thrashing. Appa dies, on fire. Steam rising. Screaming. It’s like, a five minute scene. And it’s terrifying.

A New Form Of Bending? Wuzza?

Blood-bending, sure. We know that from the show.

Lightning-bending, yep, got that, too.

Sand, metal, swamp. Fine, fine, fine.

But now we get: poo-bending.

Yep. It’s always assumed that kids like a good dooky joke (see: Jar-Jar stepping in a pile of sand-speckled shit in Tatooine), and Manny happily parades down that path. Oh, sure, they don’t call it poo-bending. They don’t call it anything. And I’m guessing that since Sokka does it — yes, that’s right, by the end Sokka starts to learn bending — it’s actually waterbending that allows the poo to move with the airy gesticulations.

Poo-bending.

This is what people think the fans, and the kids, want.

We’re all fucked. Like, as a species.

And Of Course, The Twist Ending

Manny Shammy is a junkie. He’s a junkie for the twist. He needs it. His precious. His precious.

Tricksy Hollywood execs want to take the precious away from Shammy, but ohh, Shammy will have his way. He’ll sneak one in there somehow. Except, this one is less “snuck in there” and more “crammed in there,” like the way you would stick a tricycle up somebody’s ass. It’s uncomfortable and unpleasant.

Once more, spoiler warning.

Here’s your twist.

Aang is really Aaron.

He’s not a 12-year-old “savior of the universe.” No, he’s a 12-year-old Leukemia patient that happens to be imagining this whole story. Sure, Manny throws us a bone and kind of makes it seem like, even though it’s happening in his imagination it’s still real, but c’mon. He even pulls that old Wizard of Oz chestnut, where he awakens in a hospital bed surrounded by Sokka, Katara, and even Zuko.

“And you were there, and you, and you…”

The Real Twist Ending…

…is, of course, I didn’t see this movie. I mean, c’mon. Poobending? You didn’t fall for that. I know you didn’t. Pshh. You know me better than that. I’m full of crap on the best day.

But boy, what a twist that would be, right –? Aang is actually some chemo patient somewhere named Aaron? I’m sure somewhere, M. Night is reading this and sobbing into his ruby-encrusted Cheerios.

No, I was going to see this movie, but the word-of-mouth is leading me to suspect it’s a real dog of a movie, a total crap-basket of cinematic proportions. The previews looked good, but on the other hand, I’m not surprised. Manny’s lost his touch. I think he’s fallen prey to his own quirky Michael Jackson slash David Blaine ego and he just can’t rise above it. Which is a shame. This guy was heralded as the love child of Spielberg and Hitchcock.

And the first half of his career was pretty damn special. I even liked The Village, by god.

And he’s local! Hell, he filmed some of Airbender in a quarry only minutes from where we last lived. So, I’m good to pull for the local boy. And I’m good to pull for someone who seemed overtly concerned with narrative subtlety and cinematic patience. The dude could hold a shot, y’know? He relied on us as his audience having patience — no flash cuts, no herky-jerky epileptic sequences. That scene in Unbreakable where you hear Bruce Willis’ character getting the news and, in the foreground, a dude on a gurney slowly bleeds out? Wow. That hits me every time. It requires us to be invested. And it requires M. Night to be good enough to keep us invested.

But now? Here we are. At the end of the road where I won’t even see a film that pairs together what once were two of my favorite things: a great director and a killer cartoon property. (Seriously, Avatar is easily in my top ten favorite shows, nestled right next to The Wire, methinks.)

It’s a sad day.

It’s a sad day when my joke — “Haha, Poobending!” — is basically what M. Night is doing with this film. He’s bending poop to his will. Not a particularly gracious or impressive talent, I’m afraid.