If the 11th-hour addition of 3-D to M. Night Shyamalan's odious live-action adaptation of Nickelodeon's beloved anime-influenced cartoon series doesn't make your head hurt, the excess of narration and intertitles surely will.
Darting from one location to the next, from the "Northern Earth Kingdom" to "Fire Nation Colony 15," the man Newsweek anointed "The Next Spielberg" has compressed the entire first season into an unwatchable mystic puree, old hat for the writer/director of Signs. As Aang, the youthful "last Airbender" who's awakened from a century of slumber to unite the nations of Air, Water, Earth, and Fire, newcomer Noah Ringer emotes as if in a school play.
Still, could anyone make lines like "We need to show them that we believe in our beliefs as much as they believe in their beliefs" sound, well, believable?
