An excellent example!
To be honest, most of the movies listed so far are pretty good at best but nowhere near “great” with most rarely having any great performances, so the weakest link doesn’t seem that bad by comparison.
But I’m shocked nobody has mentioned Matthew Broderick in Glory, which has some genuinely great performances and could’ve been a great movie if it wasn’t for the utter hopelessness of the miscasting of the main role. Everyone else is period-pitch-perfect, but he is terrible–not in a hammy, over-the-top way or wooden way, but by simply being unable to embody even an ounce of the charisma and gravitas of what Robert Gould Shaw needed. He reminds me of that bird toy that bobs its head into a glass or water if it had just started taking elocution lessons. Horrible.
Its “groupthink” that a bunch of people agree certain actors/actresses are generally terrible? C’mon…Keanu Reeves isn’t a wooden actor?
But it’s nonsense to claim that Keanu ruined “The Matrix” with his wooden acting. Yes, Keanu runs the emotional gamut from A to B. But he didn’t ruin that particular movie with his crap acting. He’s perfect for the role.
I thought most of the cast of “Love Story” was pretty good. Ali, not so much.
Quentin Tarantino as Jimmy in Pulp Fiction. The second half of this scene just pulls me out of an otherwise excellent film.
The scene above is NSFW.
Came in to mention this movie. For me, I found Gwynteth Paltrow’s performance infuriating distracting, only because she seemed to be the only one in the cast that didn’t understand that they were meant to be making a '30s adventure movie.
I was left with the impression that she thought she was too good to telegraph her role in the proper style, so she ended up just coming across ordinary and out-of-place. She sucked all the fun out of every scene. Bleah.
It’s groupthink when in every single thread in this vein there is a rush of posters racing to bash the same half-dozen actors with the same tired insults. Like I said, tiresome.
::Shrug:: The thread title says “good/great movies,” not “great movies,” so “pretty good movies” are fair game for discussion.
That is a really good example. Broderick had nowhere near the gravitas needed for that role.
I am not sure the character was supposed to have particular gravitas. Many of the officers in the Civil War were simply men of education and/or status. The fact that he was given a “colored” division should’ve been an indication that he was not considered much of an officer by his superiors. I actually liked Borderick acting a little out of his depth, I kind of though he was perfect for the role. Although I will concede it may be hard to see past “Ferris Bueller”.
Agreed about “Glory”. Broderick is made an officer, not because he’s a leader or warrior or is anything special, but because he’s white. He’s brave enough to march into certain death with his unit, but he’s only their leader because he’s a white man from a rich family.
Same thing for Ed Furlong in “Terminator 2”. He makes a great young John Connor, because a guy who grows up to be a resistance leader isn’t going to be a square jawed hero, but a guy who has grown up breaking the rules and getting himself in and out of trouble.
The kid in Terminator 3 was all wrong though.
I notice you left Liv Tyler and Denise Richards off of your “the gang’s all here” list.
Could that be because you happen to agree they can’t act? So, if YOU agree, then it is perfectly fine to call them out on their lack of acting talent. But if YOU disagree, then it is internet groupthink.
Incidentally, I think “Ted” Theodore Logan made a great Neo. But that’s besides the point.
Maybe it was Broderick’s weirdly affected diction in Glory, but something about him in that role was just wrong.
I don’t recall saying “Gwyneth Paltrow stinks up every picture she’s in” - she was just miscast as Polly Perkins in Sky Captain. She’s a perfectly competent dramatic actress.
Come to think of it, I don’t recall objecting to her in any other role, apart from her role as Pepper Potts in the Iron Man movies. I think it’s possible she should just avoid roles in sci-fi fantasy adventure flicks where she plays a spunky-but-demure heroine with an alliterative “P” name, who usually stands in the shadow of her Action Hero love interest, but miraculously manages to muster enough moxie to emancipate him in a menacing moment. She tends to suck at that at a bit.
Claire Danes ruined Little Women for me with all that sobbin’ and snottin’.
Keaton in the Godfathers. I know people say that’s how that part was supposed to be, but my teeth hurt watching here in that.
I don’t dislike her, either. She’s been good in some movies, and she’s smokin’ hot in Iron Man and Sky Captain, but in those roles she needed to dial the spunky up to eleven. There’s a scene in the trailer for Iron Man 2 where Tony asks for a kiss for good luck, and she kisses his helmet. I think it was edited out of the movie, which is kind of a shame, but she still needed to sell it a little more. Put some passion into it. I mean, you’re teasing the guy, make it look like you’re enjoying it.
I’m not familiar with how Pepper is in the original comic books; maybe she wasn’t supposed to be quite as spirited as I would have liked. Sky Captain is such a throwback that it just screams for that fast-talking 30’s type of female lead. There was Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey, Myrna Loy in the Thin Man movies (noticing a pattern), and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday. For a more modern take, watch Blythe Danner in Futureworld.
Come to think of it, I can’t think of a current actress who has really done that kind of performance well.
Let’s go old school.
Tony Curtis in The Black Shield of Falworth
“Yonder lies the castle of my faddah.”
Pure Brooklyn accent.
I realize it’s probably just me, but I can’t buy DiCaprio in most of his roles. He was never Howard Hughes for me, just a kid playing in his dad’s clothes.
Runaway Train - I think the acting budget was blown on the three folks on the runaway (Jon Voight, Rebecca De Mornay and Eric Roberts) - the folks in the railroad dispatchers office sucked (especially the main dispatcher).