IggyMcSnurd
Lifetime Total
10+
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IMDb Member
20 years
Reviews
The Last Airbender (2010)
My daughter and I didn't even bother past 30 minutes...
My daughter and I have watched the cartoon series since she was five years old and enjoyed the wonderful storytelling, the well developed world, the bending techniques based on real world martial arts and their philosophies, and most of all the well developed characters.
That being said, I would have to say that this movie was an utter disappointment of such profound levels that I sincerely believe that M. Night Shyamalan should never attempt to make another movie even remotely related as he obviously did not watch the series but instead simply had scenes and characters described to him. Either that, or he utterly failed to get the point of the show by a country mile.
Even in the first thirty minutes, my daughter and I gave up, having become utterly disgusted with the following: - That M. Night Shyamalan attempted to take a story which took 4 years to tell and compress it into a movie of under even 2 hours.
And here was the clincher that made my daughter and I give up on having any hope for the movie at all: Just on a whim I checked the cast list partway through the movie in order to see if I was correct that M. Night Shyamalan had inserted himself into another one of his movies. And while it appears he declined to do that, I also noticed that he omitted not only one of the most fun characters, King Bulmi... But he entirely wrote out one of the best characters of the series, Toph. The latter of which was the Master who taught Aang his earth bending in the first place.
And that's only the beginning of how poorly made this movie is. I can't tell you about the rest of it, of course... since, as I said, my daughter and I didn't bother watching more than 30 minutes.
Which has made me absolutely lose the last remaining shreds of respect I had for any of M. Night Shyamalan's abilities as a director, writer, and storyteller. (Not to say that my daughter likely doesn't have any for him to start with as this is her first movie of his she's seen any of.)
That being said, I would have to say that this movie was an utter disappointment of such profound levels that I sincerely believe that M. Night Shyamalan should never attempt to make another movie even remotely related as he obviously did not watch the series but instead simply had scenes and characters described to him. Either that, or he utterly failed to get the point of the show by a country mile.
Even in the first thirty minutes, my daughter and I gave up, having become utterly disgusted with the following: - That M. Night Shyamalan attempted to take a story which took 4 years to tell and compress it into a movie of under even 2 hours.
- The acting was so bad and flat that we felt absolutely no connection to the characters in the movie as we did in the animated series.
- They didn't even bother to use the pronunciations of character's names from the show itself... instead deciding to mangle half of them in a way that made both of us just grind our teeth to hear them spoken over and over.
- They made Katara a completely inept water bender in the start. While she was not an expert in the beginning of the series, she was not an incompetent either.
- The Firebenders in the movie, unlike in the original series, needed a fire to already be there in order to use their abilities. In the series, they created their own fire from their Chi and their bending. This made one of the most potent tribes actually the weakest and the most inherently reliant on technology. (After all, how powerful will the Firebender be when you blow out his candle... or as an earth or water bender smother the fire they use?)
And here was the clincher that made my daughter and I give up on having any hope for the movie at all: Just on a whim I checked the cast list partway through the movie in order to see if I was correct that M. Night Shyamalan had inserted himself into another one of his movies. And while it appears he declined to do that, I also noticed that he omitted not only one of the most fun characters, King Bulmi... But he entirely wrote out one of the best characters of the series, Toph. The latter of which was the Master who taught Aang his earth bending in the first place.
And that's only the beginning of how poorly made this movie is. I can't tell you about the rest of it, of course... since, as I said, my daughter and I didn't bother watching more than 30 minutes.
Which has made me absolutely lose the last remaining shreds of respect I had for any of M. Night Shyamalan's abilities as a director, writer, and storyteller. (Not to say that my daughter likely doesn't have any for him to start with as this is her first movie of his she's seen any of.)
Numb3rs (2005)
Numb3rs
I love this show...
(And, as a quick side note to: Author: budikavlan from Irving, TX... The show is pronounced "Numbers" the 3 is inspired by the "leetspeek" substitution of numbers for letters... They do that in the actor and character names in the title sequence as well. And it puts a number in the title as well. Very appropriate, really, and I like the idea.) Anyhow, on to the show itself.
I find it to be an incredibly creative premise, and they manage to keep the ideas interesting each episode. The fact that they show how Charly gets some of his inspirations from everyday things, or puts complex concepts into terms that almost anyone can understand says a lot for the potential of this show, which it has fulfilled thus far.
I also enjoy that, unlike a good number of crime dramas, you learn a lot more about the central characters, their backgrounds, and their lives away from work as more than just asides. it makes the characters a lot more three dimensional. Even the supporting characters in the show (outside of the Epps family themselves) have personalities and depth to them. This is wonderfully exhibited in the character of Dr. Larry Fleinhardt (Peter MacNicol), who sometimes helps Charly with his cases, and sometimes just stops by to bounce some of his philosophical musings off his friend. (Also showing that if you scratch the surface of any scientist, you will find a philosopher.)
One of the things Ialso credit the show with is being able to give a sense of the crimes and show what happens, without having to get graphic about it. When they do show blood, it's not overdone, and it's kept to a reasonable level, but you can still feel that something seriously wrong has happened. You won't get decomposing bodies dumped out of barrels, cooked bodies found in car trunks, dismembered body parts graphically shown, and such. In other words, unlike CSI, they won't need to continually top themselves on the "gross out" factor.
To sum it up in four words: I love this show.
IMS
(And, as a quick side note to: Author: budikavlan from Irving, TX... The show is pronounced "Numbers" the 3 is inspired by the "leetspeek" substitution of numbers for letters... They do that in the actor and character names in the title sequence as well. And it puts a number in the title as well. Very appropriate, really, and I like the idea.) Anyhow, on to the show itself.
I find it to be an incredibly creative premise, and they manage to keep the ideas interesting each episode. The fact that they show how Charly gets some of his inspirations from everyday things, or puts complex concepts into terms that almost anyone can understand says a lot for the potential of this show, which it has fulfilled thus far.
I also enjoy that, unlike a good number of crime dramas, you learn a lot more about the central characters, their backgrounds, and their lives away from work as more than just asides. it makes the characters a lot more three dimensional. Even the supporting characters in the show (outside of the Epps family themselves) have personalities and depth to them. This is wonderfully exhibited in the character of Dr. Larry Fleinhardt (Peter MacNicol), who sometimes helps Charly with his cases, and sometimes just stops by to bounce some of his philosophical musings off his friend. (Also showing that if you scratch the surface of any scientist, you will find a philosopher.)
One of the things Ialso credit the show with is being able to give a sense of the crimes and show what happens, without having to get graphic about it. When they do show blood, it's not overdone, and it's kept to a reasonable level, but you can still feel that something seriously wrong has happened. You won't get decomposing bodies dumped out of barrels, cooked bodies found in car trunks, dismembered body parts graphically shown, and such. In other words, unlike CSI, they won't need to continually top themselves on the "gross out" factor.
To sum it up in four words: I love this show.
IMS