"There are reasons each of us are born and we have to find those reasons."

Right up front, I will admit my entire previous exposure to the Avatar franchise was knowing that my friend's sister worked on the Nickelodeon series. Because of this, I knew it was based on a children's cartoon, but I wasn't expecting The Last Airbender to be a straight up kid's movie. My friends and I agreed that the marketing fell short on this one because we felt as though we were led to believe it would be more of a cool martial arts type movie, starring a kick ass kid. Brandon claims he totally knew it was a kid's movie and it was basically what he expected, even though he was a bit disappointed that it was maybe a bit overly kid friendly, especially in the violence aspect.

We enjoyed the movie for what it was - a kids' adventure flick set in a distant, strange world populated by magical creatures and characters. The effects were fun, especially the water manipulations, and little Noah Ringer was adorable and feisty as the titular character. As an M. Knight Shyamalan fan, I mostly wanted to see it because of his involvement. This was an interesting choice for him because it didn't feel like his typical style. I hadn't heard anything about the racial controversy surrounding the movie until after we saw it. Nothing struck me as strange while we were watching it except for the fact that the two main supporting kids were Caucasian when it seemed like the rest of their tribe was comprised of Inuit people. Completely superficially, I actually enjoyed the multicultural, almost Star Wars-esque, casting. Who can complain about watching handsome white, Maori, and Indian guys in the same movie? I sure as hell wouldn't.

I probably would have been obsessed with this movie when I was a kid, and certainly would have fallen madly in love with Jackson Rathbone's Sokka. My fondness for the actor has been growing lately, so seeing him here was a nice surprise. [On a side note, I actually saw two movies in the theater that day, but since Brandon didn't watch the other with me, it doesn't count towards our 100. That other movie was Eclipse, so unbeknownst to me it turned out to be a very Jackson Rathbone day!] One other actor I was not expecting in Airbender: one of my current faves, John Noble, voicing the Dragon Spirit. I recognized his voice during the movie but just could not place it while I was watching.

As seems to be the trend with a lot of our 100, we are glad we saw it but wouldn't encourage anyone to rush out and see it.