ceyanna Reviews

The Last Airbender (2010)

A nice adaptation--what's all the uproar about?

[7/10 · 3 July 2010]

After comparing notes with several friends, I simply do not see a reason for the hate-fest of reviews for The Last Airbender. We all liked it!! My family and I are fans of the animated series and found M. Night Shyamalan's adaptation to be a good representation of the main themes. We saw the movie with a friend who had not seen the series, but who liked the movie and said he was looking forward to the next installment.

Ultimately, yes, the movie contained the usual sins of an adaptation: omission of certain characters/details and abbreviated versions of others, rushing over crucial points in the interest of time, etc. However, what we are given was a rich, sweeping Cliff's notes version of the main story and an ending that begs for more.

It's sad to see M. Night take it on the chin once again. I have liked all of his movies in spite of the nasty reviews, and look forward to more from him in the future.

Open Range (2003)

Are you kidding? This was not a great movie!

[3/10 · 24 September 2005]

Aside from the gunfight scene, I felt the movie was a waste of celluloid. Robert Duvall, Kevin Costner, and Annette Bening could have played those roles in their sleep. The dialog was marginally tolerable (and there was plenty of it--no one sat together quietly in this movie), the plot was all over the map as if they could not decide how many themes to cram into the story, there was no subtlety at all--foreshadowing hit you between the eyes and they led you by the nose through most of the story (I think they added all the dialog to make sure you didn't miss anything), and the editing really needed tightening up (each actor's screen time was more quantity than quality--again, too much dialog).

The entire story took place over the course of a few days, but everything that happened took on epic proportions, much like how day-to-day happenings seemed HUGE to you in high school, but in the grand scheme really weren't THAT important. Yes, the bad guys beat up and killed Mose, they beat up Button, they killed the dog--all things which would get Boss and Charley's blood up. But the importance was diluted by all of the "deep, meaningful" conversations which dominated most of the movie. These guys worked together for 10 years and they're just now talking about this stuff? The only time there wasn't much dialog was in the gunfight scene--which is probably why I liked it.

Finally, someone give Annette Bening a hairbrush! The wispy strands of hair around her face that were (I suppose) to make her look a bit more romantic actually made her look a little deranged. If she worked outside the home, it would have made more sense. Plus, why WASN'T she married already? There seemed to be several "kind and gentle" (her words) single men in town aside from the marshal and his cronies. In fact, none of the bad guys seemed to want her either (a usual plot device in other movies). She stayed cooped up in the house most of the time and really didn't seem to have much connection to the people in town. Makes you wonder......

In all, the movie was entirely too long, too chatty, and too contrived for me. It felt like a star vehicle with lots of screen time for the big stars, but not enough character depth to interest me, despite all of the dialog.