4. The Musical Score - The Last Airbender
Another terrible Shyamalan movie redeemed by a single feature, here, although this time it has nothing to do with anything that the writer/director had any part in, but the work of the movie's composer (and Shyamalan regular) James Newton Howard, whose absolutely fantastic musical score was wasted on a movie that nobody liked. Yes, Newton's score - which has to be one of his best ever - kind of got lost among the folds, what with all the negative criticism that was heaped upon
Airbender, but soundtrack fans will surely appreciate the heights that Howard reached here. Howard has scored every Shyamalan movie to date, and he's put in consistently brilliant work from
The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs and even
The Village (another score that's better than the actual movie),
but
The Last Airbender might just win out as the best of the bunch. Beautiful, sweeping, heroic and embedded with memorable themes and musical cues, it's almost worth sitting through
The Last Airbender to experience it. Or, you know, buy it separate (yes, do that).