Noah Ringer, a 13-year-old Dallas-area kid, made the leap from pop culture obscurity to starring in a big-budget film from a big-name director.
Then he leapt back. Martial arts can give you that type of agility.
Ringer studied taekwondo at the American Taekwondo Association, or ATA, school in Carrollton. His technique, his appearance, and his love of the animated Nickelodeon series "Avatar: The Last Airbender" led him to audition for the lead character’s role in M. Night Shyamalan’s live-action, big-screen, 3-D version, "The Last Airbender," which opened Thursday.
Hmm, wonder why they dropped "Avatar" from the title. Oh.
Anyway, Ringer won the movie-hero role of Aang, and, presumably, the war between super-powerful otherworldly nations depicted in the film, and then returned to his home and taekwondo school where’s he’s just another kid.
For Ringer, it appears, "The Last Airbender" didn’t turn out to be a mindbender, unless you’re a movie critic who has to watch this stuff.
Bruce Felps owns and operates East Dallas Times, an online community news outlet serving the White Rock Lake area. He will not see this movie.
