Wednesday, January 19, 2011

2010 Year in Review: The Worst Performances

There were many painful performances this year – some came in bad movies, some came in good movies. But these are to me anyway, the worst of the worst. I’m going over them quickly so I can forget about them forever.

Worst Actor: Robert Pattinson in Remember Me - Last year I gave Pattinson this “award” for the second Twilight movie, and although he isn’t very good in the third Twilight movie, it was his performance in this teenage aimed tearjerker that was truly the worst performance of the year. He tries very hard to play the bad boy but it doesn’t work. He is simply awful in the film. I cannot wait until his 15 minutes are up.
Runners-up: Bruce Willis in Cop Out doesn’t seem to care and sleepwalks through this role - you have to do something to be funny. Gerald Butler in The Bounty Hunter proves once again that he is actor without charm - he is all accent and muscles and no talent. Sam Worthington in Clash of the Titans is once again the blandest action hero in recent memory. Benicio Del Toro in The Wolf Man needed to know he was making a silly werewolf movie not a Shakespeare drama and lighten the hell up. Adam Sandler in Grown Ups is coasting on his natural charm but to me, when I know he has real talent, it bugs me when he makes crap like this. Liam Neeson in Chloe has zero charisma, which is deadly in an erotic thriller - I know he had bigger things on his mind when filming the movie, but he doesn’t do anything in the film to make him interesting.

Worst Actress: Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City 2 - Sarah Jessica Parker is a seemingly intelligent woman, so I have no idea why every movie she makes is so god awful. Her Carrie Bradshaw has always been among the shallowest characters ever created, but she takes it to new levels here - where she is thoroughly unlikable from beginning to end. I’ve always thought that Mr. Big was an asshole - but even he deserves better than this woman.
Runners-Up: Jennifer Aniston in The Bounty Hunter - needs to stop trying to be Rachel in every movie, and find some different notes to play. Kristen Scott Thomas in Partir acts like a selfish, naïve teenage girl who deserves precisely what she gets - if it wasn’t for Parker she would be the least likable character of the year. Rachel Weisz in Agora seems to play her role like a BC version of Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory - zero humanity - but in that show Sheldon is hilariously clueless, Weisz is just clueless.

Worst Supporting Actor: Dev Patel in The Last Airbender. Patel may not have been brilliant in Slumdog Millionaire, but he was sure as hell likable. Here, his lack of any apparent acting skill shines through in each and every scene - it a performance that is supposed to straddle good and evil, but somehow he makes it completely boring.
Runners-Up: Harrison Ford in Extraordinary Measures doesn’t care and it shows in every frame of the film. Cam Gigadet in Burlesque tries very hard to be the lovable bad boy, but his lack of acting talent hurts in every scene. David Spade/Rob Schneider in Grown Ups have never had much talent, and here are comedic dead zones. Taylor Lautner in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is still all muscles and zero talent. Ben Kingsley in Prince of Persia glowers in the background until the obvious - that he is the bad guy becomes obvious, then he goes over the top. Anthony Hopkins in The Wolf Man seemingly tries to compensate for the method underperforming of Del Toro by going way over the top as his father, and it is just embarrassing. Jack Nicholson in How Do You Know is clearly doing the movie because director James L. Brooks helped him win two Oscars - because he clearly doesn’t give a crap about the film and for the first time is completely boring in a movie.

Worst Supporting Actress: Kim Cattrall in The Ghost Writer/Sex and the City 2. In Sex and the City 2 Samantha becomes a parody of her former self and its painful to watch. The Ghost Writer, a great film, she is horribly miscast as the “sexy” assistant and she almost derails the movie at times. She had a horrible year.
Runners-Up: Gemma Artetron in Clash of the Titans/Prince of Persia proved she could act in The Disappearance of Alice Creed but also proved if she had bad writing she wasn’t going to do anything with it. Kristen Davis and Cynthia Nixon in Sex and the City 2 do not seem to care in the movie - why else would they be a part of this crap, which ruined their characters forever. Ellen Barkin in Brooklyn’s Finest in an otherwise fine film goes wildly over the top and is damn near unwatchable - but luckily she isn’t in the movie much. Jessica Alba in Valentine’s Day is in a cast of big stars, in an awful movie, but she is far and away the worst of the bunch - I still have no idea what she was trying to do in the film.

1 comment:

  1. I thought Rachel Weisz's performance in Agora was the best thing about that film. A powerful performance that made you care about what was going on.

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