In 2005, the first episode of the animated tale Avatar: The Last Airbender aired on Nickelodeon on US TV. Its unusual mix of anime and US animated styles proved a hit with its younger audience. As did its story of its young protagonist Aang out to defeat the world of the evil brought about by the Fire Nation.

In 2008, its third and final season culminated in a two-hour finale special. Considering how easy it would have been to stretch the saga on for years to come, it was seen as a good sign to end it on a high. Imagine the excitement then of having none other than M. Night Shyamalan interested in turning the animated series into a live-action film. Sadly whatever excitement there may have been for this project soon dissipated into thin air on its arrival.

The story centres around young Aang (Noah Ringer), a monk who had past a test that hundreds had failed, to be the next chosen Avatar. Scared of the huge responsibilities that come with such a position, he flees from the temple. Not soon after however, he gets frozen in a huge iceberg.

He finally gets freed from his chilly prison by two youngsters, Katara (Nicola Peltz) and her brother Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) from the Southern Water Tribe. What Aang isn’t initially aware of is that he’s actually been frozen for a hundred years, and much has changed in the world during that time.

It seems that somehow those hotheads the Fire Nation are out to take over the world; not only are there no longer any Air Nomads thanks to them, but the fire Nation are also currently waging a war against the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes.

However, as the chosen Avatar – which means having the ability to control all of the elements, known as ‘bending’ – Aang has the power within him to stop the Fire Nation once and for all. The problem is, the only element he does have control over thus far is air; it will take much learning and skill to harness the remaining elements, and with the Fire Nation literally breathing fire down his neck, young Aang has a very tall mountain to climb.

For anyone expecting this to be one of Shyamalan’s edgy thrillers in the vein of Signs or The Happening they will be both surprised and disappointed with this. Manoj (which is what the M stands for in his name, in case you were wondering) used to watch the cartoon with his daughters and became hooked on the series. This proves without a shadow of a doubt, that it’s not always a good idea for a director to pursue a project to direct just because he has a passion for the source material.

The real problem with The Last Airbender is that Shyamalan has tried far too hard to remain faithful to the show. In doing so he has produced an overly trite and self-absorbed mess of a film. It’s rooted so deeply in the whole elements mythology, it feels like brainwashing propaganda that the Scientologist crowd would be deeply envious of. As a consequence, it means that the film is completely devoid of fun.

And what looks good in a stylish animated form, doesn’t necessarily translate to a live action flick. When the young actors are performing what looks like tai chi, although it appears ever so graceful, it’s also a bit on the gay side. It’s all just one step and side shuffle away from a Riverdance action film.

It also doesn’t help that the acting here makes the animated characters seem positively lifelike. With water, fire, ice, earth and wind all themes featured heavily in the film, the actors have clearly decided that their wooden performances would be the perfect accompaniment. Maybe they thought that they were all going to animated over like in 2007’s Beowulf. If only they were, it would have saved on a whole heap of embarrassment. In particular, all the hard work that Dev Patel (who plays Prince Zuko) has done in Skins and Slumdog Millionaire is all too quickly undone here.

The final result is something you would expect from the makers of Xena: Warrior Princess and not someone of Shyamalan’s obvious talent.

It also doesn’t help matters when characters mention that someone is “a bender” every now and then; although the sniggers that they produce are the closest the film comes to light relief.

And it gets worse. The Last Airbender is the first of a planned trilogy, with Shyamalan already stating that he’s written a script for at least one sequel. This begs the question: is he possibly going round the bend?

Its one possible redeeming feature is, perhaps, that the film is bereft of any real weapons, which is nice to see in a family film of this kind. Having said that though, it’s safe to assume that getting whacked in the head with a fireball is going to hurt.

Shyamalan should have really left all this bending malarkey to someone who had an idea of what they were doing, as he proves that he was way out of his element here.