Seeing Avatar made me appreciate two things above all else:
1) The sheer amount of man-hours required to invent the planet of Pandora and make it plausible, even beautiful
2) Chris Pine's performance in Star Trek
Sure, Pine had nothing to do with Avatar -- instead, James Cameron cast Australian actor Sam Worthington as his lead character, Jake Sully. Still, I couldn't help but be reminded of Pine's James T. Kirk because both Pine and Worthington played such similar arcs this year: Both of their cocky sci-fi assholes were gradually humbled by new, earnest friends, then found it within themselves to become the leaders we always knew they could be. So why did I watch Pine's take on his character and think "movie star," while with Worthington, I'm not so sure?
Worthington is at an interesting place in his career -- after Cameron plucked him from relative obscurity several years ago to star in Avatar, Hollywood rushed to capitalize on his new buzz and cast the 33-year-old in mega-tentpoles Terminator Salvation and Clash of the Titans. (That Terminator ended up coming out before Avatar is a testament to just how long Cameron's movie was in production.) The last comparable example I can remember, where a new leading man was anointed before general audiences had their chance to weigh in, was Colin Farrell earlier in this decade. Farrell, too, was a foreigner, and off the strength of his performance in the tiny Tigerland, he created such a Hollywood feeding frenzy that he landed lead after lead (including a huge paycheck for the film Hart's War) as a virtual unknown. Then, almost all of those hastily procured films flopped at the box office.
That said, if a fresh-faced Farrell had been cast in Avatar, I think he would have done a better job.
Sure, Farrell's movie star coronation may have been premature, but he still has a certain kind of star charisma that I just don't get off the blandly serviceable Worthington. Cameron's film is designed in every respect to be iconic, but Worthington's simply too much of a generic presence to register on that scale. It helps when he's glimpsed as a Na'vi (since he finally starts to puts some emphasis into his acting), but even then, Worthington's quirk-less features conspire against him. We thrill when Sigourney Weaver's avatar shares some of the actress's recognizable features, but there's nothing distinctive about Worthington to mine beyond his neckbeard.
Occasionally, when an actor's performance simply isn't doing much for me, I'll begin fantasy re-casting in my head (imagine the inventive Emily Blunt going toe-to-toe with Robert Downey Jr. in Sherlock Holmes instead of an adrift-looking Rachel McAdams, or Javier Bardem adding crucial warmth and heft to Nine's Guido Contini in lieu of a miscast Daniel Day-Lewis). The thing about Worthington is that I can think of so many other actors who could have made Jake Sully something iconic. Pine, Farrell -- hell, even Heath Ledger -- they all would have surpassed Worthington's serviceable portrayal by imbuing the part with some additional personality and charisma.
Let me be clear: I don't think Worthington is a bad actor. He was at least interesting in Terminator Salvation, though that may owe more to the fact that he was the only character handed something to play. What I'm feeling more and more, though, is that Worthington simply isn't idiosyncratic enough to be a megastar. Perhaps smaller-scaled drama could be his forte -- Eva Mendes raved about his work opposite her in the upcoming Last Night, and Worthington earned awards for his work in the 2004 Australian film Somersault. In a tentpole, though, I'd rather see him play the lead's brother than the lead himself.
Still, Worthington will have several more chances to prove me wrong -- Avatar is a monster hit, and he'll be able to coast off of that film for a long time. (Leonardo DiCaprio was practically granted tenure off of Titanic.) To judge by his full slate of projects, Hollywood already saw Sam Worthington as a movie star before Avatar even came out. Does it matter that after finally watching the film, I don't?