I came out of this film very frustrated at what COULD have been. As a Theatre student, I was sorely disappointed by the acting, especially Sam Worthington's performance. Now, sci-fi has never been my thing, and only went to see Avatar because my parents wanted to. I have to say, while I was obviously impressed with how lush and amazing the visuals were, that's all this movie was. Even though Zoe Saldana's performance as Neytiri was surprisingly gripping, as was CCH Pounder as her mother, every male performance in this film was sorely lacking. Stephen Lang as the "bad guy" was alternately painful and laughable, and delivered some of the worst movie dialogue since X-Men. I'm not sure what was so off about these performances, but it really let down the whole film. The plot was, of course, nothing new and the story played out predictably. This wouldn't have bothered me so much if the actors has delivered, or they had better lines - i'm not sure which is to blame at this point. Even though directors like Cameron are never known for dialogue, at least with Titanic you had two magnetic leads who pulled off EVERY line. Not so with Worthington and the rest of the cast. This movie was the equivalent of Cameron flashing a shiny new toy at us so we will all Ooooh and Ahhh over it.

Don't get me wrong, Avatar is worth seeing in 3D, but this is nowhere near Best Picture material.