Welcome to the world of DV, well to some extent. Video in general and digital video in particular has a certain 'harshness' to it. Film has a totaly different look to it than video and a lot of that is preserved even when it's converted to video. It's not just the resolution of the images, film is shot at a different frame rate and shutter speeds to video. There's a whole range of other factors at play too, lighting is a big part and the way it's shot. For example film makes use of depth of field, this is hard to control in most video cameras and mostly video is is shot with flat lighting as it doesn't have anywhere the latitude of film.
What can you do to make what you've got look better?
Well firstly learn a lot about how film is shot. Even with a cheap camera how you light the scene and how you use the camera can make a big difference. Look into filters for the camera to take the edge off the image.
I haven't mentioed doing anything in post. That should be the last course of attack. You can do a search here for 'Film Look' and you'll find HEAPS of posts and links to .veg files on how to achieve that 'look'. But if you don't take to heart what I said about what happens in front of the camera, before you even hit the record button then what you'll end up with is what looks more like video on film
If you're really serious, spend some time studying movies, look how the camera moves or more to the point, doesn't move! You'd be amazed how many movies are shot without a single zoom lens let alone actually having a zoom in a shot.
If you want to try something quick and dirty, just add a bit of blur and lens flair, I mean a REAL little bit. Remember if you can notice it in a small preview window it's going to look much more dramatic on a bigger TV.