Charlton Heston
I liked him in Devil’s Advocate.
However, you choice of Lewis isn’t right. She’s not rated highly by anyone last I checked ;).
Harrison Ford is an alright actor when he sticks to action flicks. It is when he tries to get into movies where he really has to act, is when it suffers. Even though ya might say he’s overrated, I thought he was great in the Star Wars IV, V, VI, Indiana Jones Trilogy, and the Clancy movies, and you know you are going to see the next Indy movie when it comes out :D.
You want to know what’s sad? I’m on record as saying I would have seen Music of the Heart had Madonna done the role like she was initially supposed to.
**ISiddiqui **
Hell, I liked Pacino in devil’s advocate too. His gross overacting suited the part. Keanu Reeves though… His credability as a Summa Cum Laude law school grad is absolutely zero: “Like, y’r honer, we kinda object… duh…”
So the movie turned out to be crap and I’m still wondering what made Pacino do it.
Of course I’m going to see Indy4, but that does not invalidate that Ford is a hack, that gets parts more accomplished actors might have done a better job with. He gets them for his box office appeal, but when people start saying he’s a good actor, I think it’s wrong. He is a good moviestar and leading man in an actionflick, but would you pay to see him on stage, as… King Lear?
And no, after seing Pacinos take on Richard III, I wouldn’t pay to see him do Shakespear on stage either.
Keanu Reeves sucks, except when he’s playing a bad guy, a la “The Gift”.
The fact that Julia FUCKING Roberts won over Ellen Burstyn last year just frosts me.
Love Meryl Streep.
Love DeNiro
Ben Affleck blows moose udders in hell (and I don’t think I’d sleep with him, either)
Most of those new 20-something actresses suck
Stallone has always left me asking, “How the hell did he get this job?”
Man, he owns the f—in’ company, Capiche?
I agree with whoever suggested Julia Roberts, other than Steel Magnolias and Pretty Woman, she hasn’t really done a good movie.
Jim Carrey had the right idea: Make lots of movies (money), then retire. As long as you got the money and don’t need any more, f–k 'em. I’ll admit I did like ‘The Mask’, tho.
I think any actor/actress can happen to have bad movies because of bad director/direction/script whatever, but it’s the ones who ‘star’ despite that that are recognized.
Also, I can’t believe noone has mentioned Kevin Costner. Sucks, big time.
This is a really weird thread. It’s supposed to be about overrated actors, in which case you would expect to see a list of names of actors who are highly regarded and then some reasons why they don’t live up to their reputations.
Instead, we get a list of actors (mostly very talented) who have: (a) made bad choices regarding material, (b) given recent performances that aren’t as good as their best performances, and © been in movies that were not hits.
In response, I would suggest that: (a) bad judgment does not necessarily indicate a lack of talent; (b) disappointing recent performances indicate not being overrated but rather failing to live up to their potential; and © poor box office performance does not always indicate lack of talent.
As for actors who play the same role over and over, there’s a difference between being a limited actor and being a bad actor. If someone’s good at doing only one thing, we should acknowledge that they’re good at that one thing, and we should respect them for sticking to it, instead of trying to do something else where they fail miserably.
I agree with ScriptAnalyst.
And I also vote for ** Jack Nicholson. ** Great personality, not much of an actor.
And as much as I love Julia Roberts, I was alos frosted about her win over Burstyn.
Can I say Brad Pitt?
good lord what a piece of badly aging fluff he is…
Ahem.
Pacino and DeNiro in Heat were very good. Great direction, filming and editing too.
Julia Roberts tore the place up in Erin Brokavich.
Kevin Spacey- He was all right in American Beauty. Why wouldn’t he be? He played esactly the same character in “The Ref”, and variations on it in all his other ovies.
Tom Hanks- I don’t get it.
I’m sure I have tons more. They’ll come to me…
I cast a vote for Marilyn Monroe…EXTREMELY overrated!
Come’on definitly Melanie Griffith. Who casting couch was she warming up??
Ah, but I liked the movie as well… loved it, in fact :D.
As a director perhaps, but his roles in Dances with Wolves, Field of Dreams, The Untouchables, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, JFK, and Thirteen Days, make me see that he is actually a pretty good actor… especially comparatively.
I tend to think an actor is a good actor if s/he can make me forget I’ve seen them in other roles. Some of the folks named here have succeeded in that, so we’ve either got a difference in opinion or I’m just gullible.
For me, Helen Hunt tops my list of overrated actresses. I don’t know if it’s her expressions or gestures or what, but she never seems other than the exact same person from Mad About You. I read something about all the prep work she did for “As Good As It Gets” where she was instructed to “act through her feet” since waitresses’ feet are always so tired. Sorry, it didn’t work for me. They were the same feet she had in “Castaway” and “What Women Want” and everything else she’d been in before and after that role.
Julia Roberts is an Evil Vagina. I mean her mouth is shaped like a Vagina. An Evil one. She could fit 2 oranges side by side in that there Vagina.
Jim Carrey was absolutely perfect in The Mask. No one else could have pulled that off.
Most over-rated actor today is Vin Diesel. Yeah hes one of the few muscle goons out there nowadays, but he is SUCH a terrible actor.
That’s it. My list of actors show some very famous names who supposedly are distinguished as being great actors. If you check out De Niro’s list of films, three of all his movies from the 90’s have been mentioned in this thread: Heat, Cape Fear and Wag the dog. Even though these are quite good, they don’t live up to expectations. If this were the only movies he’d made during the 90’s, he would still get som respect from me. But come on: Analyze This? Meet The Parents? And the upcoming Analyze That & Meet the Fockers? He’s made 34 movies since 1990.
If being a good actor is about getting a good screenplay and good directing, sorry, I lost you guys there. Rather it’s like this
One example of this is Gene Hackman. He’s been in some truly awful movies, but he is always good. Another one of those is Peter O’Toole.
I blame the studiosystem and the way they are using reference groups to check everything and play it safe. The 70’s gave as a whole variety of good movies and actors. During the 80’s, Spielberg and Lucas reigned and showed the studios what can be done with big blockbusters. The 90’s has intensified the trend. Movies are made through negotiating with agents. They start with concept De Niro + Eddie Murphy = comedy ( along lines explored almost 20 years ago, with Murphy and Nolte) and then start writing the script.
The only remotely good actor to come out the last 5 years is Edward Norton.
Ooh, I forgot about her. She has way too much forehead for me to ever take her seriously.
Ooookay.
Let’s talk about DeNiro for a minute. He’s played amazing roles in amazing films, many times. To me, the issues people (including me) have with DeNiro’s acting ability are of relatively recent origin. I think it began with Cape Fear, which was a pretty good movie. However, DeNiro was playing Travis Bickle in that movie, turned up a notch. Since that period, it seems like DeNiro’s best work has been derivative of Bickle or his earlier gangster/criminal roles. But occasionally, he’ll give us a wink like Jackie Brown to show he’s still paying attention. It seems like he’s cashing paychecks to fund his TriBeCa film festival, among other things. I got no problem with that.
Saying DeNiro is overrated now doesn’t mean much. If you had said it back in the day, it would be a big statement. But I don’t really hear people nowadays talking a lot about the strength of roles DeNiro has played in the last ten years. He hasn’t had an Oscar nomination since 1991 (The aforementioned Cape Fear) and hasn’t won since Raging Bull, in 1981.
Would you have said that he was overrated then? Because then you would have been saying something. Now he’s got other things on his mind, and I don’t think he’s on anyone’s list of the best actors in terms of current work.
By this definition, Russel Crowe is a candidate for overrated, though I disagree. So is Tom Hanks, though I tend to disgree there as well. There’s a problem with people, as they become too famous, they lose that anonymous, amorphic actorly quality that we appreciate so much. They become an archetype, and it’s hard to see them as anything else but Pacino, Deniro, Julia.
So it’s part some people getting lazy, and it’s part artifact of the system.
Stoli.
I agree.
Problem is. when it comes to publicity and the public mind, they are still great actors. Cineasts recognize that they cash in their $1-2 mil. paycheck to lazily walk on the set and sulk in their trailers.
I’m not buying it anymore. It used to be that Pacino, De Niro et. al marked for a good movie, not only from their acting abilities, but from the fact that they picked good projects.
Not so anymore.
I’d rather see Rush Hour, since I know I’ll get a braindead Big Mac & Fries for a movie, than rent something with De Niro and get disappointed again (as I did with The Score).