I am sad to say it, but M. Night Shyamalan has now made more bad films than good ones.

His breakout hit, “The Sixth Sense,” was a suspense masterpiece. His follow-up to that, “Unbreakable,” was a dark twist on the superhero movie. After that came “Signs,” a quiet, yet at times terrifying meditation on faith and redemption. However, after that came “The Village,” by which time he had exercised his “twist” ending to utter predictability.

The confusing and pretentious “Lady in the Water” followed, and then his campy, ridiculous and preachy comment on global warming, “The Happening.” In short, M. Night had a lot riding on his newest film, “The Last Airbender,” and I’m truly sad to say that his gamble did not pay off.

The story, based on a Nickelodeon cartoon and children’s book series, revolves around a child who can bend the elements, and who alone can save the world from an evil nation. This is the Fire Nation, who is in opposition to the Water and Earth Nations.

In this world, people control, or “bend” the elements to fight against each other. The child, named Ong, is the one person left in the world who can bend air, and who has a chance of learning to bend all the elements. Confused yet? I know I was.

This movie is a mess, and I expect that unless you’ve seen the cartoon or read the books, you will feel like I did. I guess the plot sort of makes sense, but the movie throws you into the world so rapidly that it’s impossible not to feel disoriented by it.

Whereas most movies suffer from too much set-up, this film suffers from too little. On top of this, the actors, mostly very young, are also pretty bad. The relationships feel forced, and the dialogue is actually laughably bad at times. The only character who is really interesting is the evil Prince Zuko, played by “Slumdog Millionaire” actor Dev Patel.

There is actually an opportunity for a compelling story about nepotism with his character, but the rest of the actors fall miles short. (For “Daily Show” fans, just try not to laugh the first time you see longtime correspondent Aasif Mandvi come on screen.)

However, it is unclear how much of the poor acting is a result of bad actors, or a bad script. M. Night wrote, directed and produced this, and if he just directed it, that’d be one thing, but the fact that he helped to get it off the ground, and then wrote a horrible script for it, is the worst part of all, since he’s proven himself to be a good writer in the past.

There are some good action moments in this film (even though the 3D is terrible.) But ultimately, nothing can save “The Last Airbender.” This film is ridiculous, stupid, and sadly, sadly disappointing.