James Cameron's Avatar finally drops amid excitement about his epic visuals and budget and disappointment in the paper-thin plot for which they serve. Sam Worthington, via a nine-foot-tall blue Avatar, infiltrates the Na'vi tribe in order to coerce them off of the land above a rich energy mineral deposit and eventually goes native when human greed robs the Na'vi of their home and dignity. I have had Cameron's innovative 3D confirmed as being "avatacular," but stripped of it in a 2D showing the experience is flat, period, and I resent the implication that I have short-changed the film because I could not make it to a 3D screening. I am not a crank for thinking that story and script are still the greatest and most effective special effects of all. –Hillary Titley