What's really so fantastic about 'Avatar'?

Before Avatar came out, a colleague of mine said, based on early buzz, that the movie sounded like "the Smurfs running around in the jungle." I laughed, but secretly hoped it was more complex than that. Then I saw it for myself. And it was worse than jungle-happy Smurfs. Its hackneyed plot and depthless characters, not to mention the overwhelmingly blasé graphics, were nearly too much for me to handle. At three hours or so, it was like watching the polish dry on my girlfriend's toenails. The question I left the theater asking myself was: Why did these avatars have to look so ridiculous and have such a complicated backstory? (Sigourney Weaver's avatar was dumpy and un-hot compared to the cougar she is in real life, for example.) Not to mention that the movie featured some truly talentless actors: Joel Moore (his delivery is like that of a high school janitor), Giovanni Ribisi (still think the only thing good he ever did was his turn on The X-Files as a lightning-tapping teen) and Wes Studi (the same-Native-American-in-every-movie guy). And now everyone's saying it's going to sweep the Oscars after a big night at the Golden Globes a few weeks back. Am I missing something here?

—Posted by Will Levith