In 1999 an unknown writer/director had a huge breakout success with his third film. The film was so big that it instantly catapulted him to A-list director status. The film was The Sixth Sense. The writer/director was M. Night Shyamalan.

After Sixth Sense, Shyamalan was heralded as the second coming of Spielberg. His next films never achieved Sixth Sense level of success, but were all great movies in their own right. Unbreakable, Signs, and even The Village were all fun movies. Then came Lady in the Water and The Happening. Yikes. They were both beyond bad. How had the once great director fallen so far?

I blamed the writing. He was still stubbornly holding on to the writing. Maybe it would be better if he let go of writing and just focus on directing – obviously his strength. When I heard that his next film would be based on the popular Nickelodeon cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender, I couldn’t have been more excited. My brother and sister were both really into the show at the time. I had only watched a few episodes, but had seen enough to know that it could be an amazing series of films. This would finally be Shyamalan’s return to glory. Finally a chance for him to focus on directing a story that hadn’t originated with him. He couldn’t possibly screw this up. Right?

WRONG! The Last Airbender is horrible. I had a chance to see it at an advance screening in Hollywood last week. It didn’t work at all for me. It’s horribly written (by Shyamalan) and poorly paced. The main kid actors were far too modern for this movie. They looked like they belonged in Twilight. The film suffers from a truly dreadful voice over. It’s one of the main characters speaking in past tense, so you know it’s all going to work out in the end.

Rather than show us two characters falling in love, we’re told by the narrator that they do. This narration is used to cram in a season’s worth of exposition. It’s almost like a six year old telling you what happens in the show. “First this happens and then this happens and then this… Oh and I forgot to tell you this one part…”

For those of you with no knowledge of the show, The Last Airbender takes place in a world with four kingdoms – air, water, earth, and fire. Each of these kingdoms have some people with the ability to bend their kingdom’s element. Bending means they can control that element. Move it around and stuff. If you’ve seen the trailer, you get the idea.

The story starts when two kids from the water kingdom find this other kid frozen in an iceberg or something. He’s the lost avatar. Every generation has a new avatar that can control all of the elements. This kid avatar has been missing for 100 years. While he’s been missing, the fire nation has killed all the airbenders and is ruling over the other nations. Once the kids realize they’ve found the avatar, they set off on a mission to help him learn how to bend the other elements.

It could have been really cool, but Shyamalan botched it. Honestly, it doesn’t even feel like he directed it. It was fairly basic direction without any of the interesting shots and creative blocking we’ve come to expect from Shyamalan. However, it was the writing that was this movie’s downfall. Even with some fantastic source material to draw from, Shyamalan comes up short in the writing department. I have no clue what happened to his writing ability after Sixth Sense. Dialogue was on the nose and clunky. There is no drama in any of the scenes. It was mostly just people talking followed by scenes of bending followed by more talking.

I will admit that the bending is done really well. It’s a cool ability and fun to see on screen. Sadly, I suspect that for many audience members that will be enough and this will do big business this summer. We’ll see, but as far as I’m concerned I’d be irresponsible not to tell you to save your money. Avoid this stinker at all costs.