It's always like this: people watch cartoons and animes, play videogames, read books and go to the movies thinking they will find out the same thing they watched, played or read.
The Last Airbend, the MOVIE, is NOT the cartoon/anime!!! It's a MOVIE, so everybody should treat it like that.

In terms of movie - plot, screenplay, direction, effects - it's just what it intends itself to be: a fantasy and adventure movie with action from the beginning to the end. And this is it. Period. No more, no less than this. This movie doesn't pretend, like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson or the STUPID Twilight saga, to be any other thing than what it actually is.

In this sense, The Last Airbender is sincere with its public: I am what I am. Don't expect from me anything else than what you are watching in front of your eyes. And be advised (since the very beginning of the movie) that there will be sequences, three at least (he bent only the water element... there are the other three ones...).

Inside this sense of sincerety, the movie is absolutely successful in its intention and in its filmmaking: the plot is simple but not simplistic, like all good movies must be; the screenplay is well written (and the dialogues DO make sense in the story!); the direction reveals an unknown Shyamalan, much more concerned with fantasy and the supernatural in fiction than everybody thought since The Sixth Sense (but people are not used to surprises and kept waiting for that Shyamalan, as people always keep waiting the Tarantino from Pulp Fiction...); and the effects are just in the proper measure for a fantasy and adventure movie (not amateaurish as the STUPID Twilight Saga; not excessively overreached as Avatar).

What can we expect of a good movie? Just what I described: good plot, good screeplay, a renewed director in a different (and good) way of directing, and effects in proper measure. Or am I wrong?
I cannot understand or realize what are the so pointed problems of The Last Airbender or of Shyamalan's direction that are making people think the movie is bad.

Possibly I must be living in an upside down world, where people think the STUPID Twilight Saga is better than a good Shyamalan movie (have you seen the Tomatometer?!)!
What a lame!