Pajiba

First thing that came to mind was Tom Hanks in The Ladykillers. You could also dedicate an entire wing to Marlon Brando, but The Island Of Dr. Moreau stands out.

Ben Kingsley in "Sound of Thunder".

Yes, I actually watched that. Ick.

Also, any time a great comedic actor is put in an unfunny movie counts. (Bill Murray, Garfield. Will Ferril, Step Brothers. Eddie Murphy, Norbit, Pluto Nash, Daddy Day Care. Adam Sandler, 90% of his work.)

Ben Kingsley in Bloodrayne. I think somebody must have kidnapped his kids and held them for ransom to get him to do that dreadful flick.

Al Pacino in anything from the last five years.

Robert DeNiro from anything in the last ten years.

Angelina Jolie. Pick a movie, any movie.

Donald Sutherland as Merrick in Buffy the Vampire Slayer - the (original) movie.

Clint Eastwook in The Eiger Sanction - great book (although almost a test-treatment for the even better Shibumi), strange adaptation, and Eastwood doesn't even play a good Eastwood in this one.

The problem - there are plenty of great-for-a-while actors who lost their mind / skills / interest, at some point, thereafter turning in a string of paycheck performances. Finding an actor with one epic fail in the midst of continuing awesomeness - harder to do.

I'm on the fence about Derek Jacobi. Has he devolved into consistent characiture, or is there good work still mixed in there?

Henry Fonda / Martin Sheen '12
Pretending well is often progress enough.

David Wenham in Australia.

Yeahhhhhhhhh... don't know what was going on there... yeahhhhhhhhhhhh...

Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey in "Edison", if anyone saw it.

Guy Pierce in "Count of Monte Cristo".

Both really bad movies.

It pains me to say this about my girl crush, but Helen Mirren in National Treasure 2.

Brad Pitt in Troy.

Nic Cage... A good actor...

Dude.

is no one going to mention amy locane in crybaby?!?!

@Kamikaze Feminist, I don't understand what you felt was so objectionable about Ryan Gosling's performance in The Notebook. Is it possible your qualms are more with the movie itself?

The correct answer is Lucille Ball in Mame. Thanks for playing.

Tom Hanks in The Da Vinci code. Actually, pretty much everyone in that movie failed epically, even Ian McKellen.

I am sorry folks, but the following above mentioned people are not "Good Actors";

Adam Sandler -- Sorry, but Punch Drunk Love is the only time he's "acted".
Ryan Reynolds -- Being a smart-ass isn't acting, no matter how good at it you are. He just works out a lot. I know guys like him, they just happened to be butt ugly.
Nic Cage -- I honestly believe he just occasionally stumbles onto something decent.
Will Ferrell/Eddie Murphy -- sorry, not "good actors" based on their work.

My shout-outs to bad performances;

Leo -- Gangs of New York; Least believable badass protagonist I've seen in a long time.
Denzel/Russell Crow -- Virtuosity. Ughhh...
Johnny Depp -- Secret Window. I predicted the ending after 10 minutes and wish I had walked out.
Ed Norton -- Death to Smoochy. Every copy of this movie should be launched into the sun.
Cate Blanchett -- Indiana Jones and the Dear Lord Get Me a Time Machine So I Can Stop This From Movie From Making Me Want to Put My Head in the Fucking Toaster.

It's hard to differentiate between bad casting, a bad actor, and just a bad movie. I keep going back to Keanu Reeves in Much Ado About Nothing, but it's not like he should be performing Shakespeare anyway, so bad casting.

Worst performance in a movie by a good actor?
Spicoli, when he went full retard.

Christian Bale wasn't very good in Terminator Salvation. I love the man, but he's falling back on his raspy-voice schtick to indicate intensity. It was lame and sad to see.

Also, just because the picture featured in this thread got me thinking about it - Eric Bana looks way better with a shaved head and Romulan tattoos. I'm just saying...

--==* Sugarbabymeet.C'om *==-- It's where Sugarbaby (women who are mature, rich and experienced) and men who like them can meet.

DeNiro in pretty much everything after about 1990 or so.

BTW, what's the opposite corollary? What's a bad actor that's surprised you with a good performance?

For example, I don't think much of Mark Wahlberg BUT he makes The Departed for me. Or Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls.

DeNiro in pretty much everything after about 1990 or so.
Posted by: Bistro at June 3, 2009 11:39 PM

Ditto Steve Martin

Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Dark Knight. She pretty much just phones in the performance, except in her final scene, which just makes her crappy acting in the rest of the movie even more depressing. It wasn't entirely her fault--the dialogue given to Rachel is really terrible--but she has the acting talent to make a relatively two-dimensional character more interesting, and she didn't do that.

Simon Pegg in Run, Fat Boy, Run. I LOVE The Peggster with all my heart, but I wanted to kick him in the nuts that whole movie. Of course, it didn't help that the movie sucked so bad! How to Lose Friends and Alienate People sucked majorly, too, but at least Simon was charming and sexy in it...

Ewan McGregor, Michelle Williams, and Hugh Jackman in Deception.

Can Sasha Gray really be considered a good actress? I guess she acts like she enjoys having a giant penis in her ass... so maybe that's something?

Ed Norton -- Death to Smoochy. Every copy of this movie should be launched into the sun.

Blasphemy! I fart in your general direction.

Nicholson in something or other. I'd say "The Bucket List" but I haven't seen it and never will.

That would drag Morgan Freeman in too.

Sansho1, I'm glad to hear that movie disturbed someone else as much as it did me. Talk about a horrific vanity project. So Kevin Spacey is def. a great example.

And Louise, Judi Dench was in the Chronicles of Riddick. And (sniff) that godawful Pride and Prejudice from a couple of years back. And some terrible Bond movies (but I blame the franchise for that, she was good). Actually, she was good in all that stuff, she was just the lone bastion of non-suckage amid all of the suck.

Oh, ,, I saw The Bucket List. Good god, how do you screw up a film with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson that badly? It's even worse than your wildest nightmare could predict.

I got to get to bed, Dad hurt his back, and Mom and I have to be his designated driver due to the medicine.

Jerce, I'm inclined to leap to the defence of my fellow Limey,I think Roth is supposed to be 'flat' or rather blank in Lie To Me, the whole point is that he's trained himself to be very blunt and very hard to read, there's no point being a lying expert if your every emotional reaction is written across your face. Take a few key scenes as examples; When confronted or questioned about past traumas, he goes completely blank (in the ep with the girls comittin suicide, in one or two before that) not in a 'bad acting' way but in a 'locking down because everyone around me can read my emotions completely and will guess my terrible thecwetth' way

I think given time, his performance will reflect that its the character. The character just needs a strong emotional trigger(CHiggedy check when he screams at Ria in the rapist ep, that isn't bad acting, I'm surprised the actress didn't burst into tears tbh!)

But thats my two cents.

As for worst performances by goooood actorssss...hmmmm....I can think of a few but for some reason cant seem to list them... I agree with Spiderman, Tobey just...actually, I dont know if I consider him good enough of an actor to say it was a good acting acting badly.
I agree entirely that Angelina Jolie is just a straight up bad fucking actress(and she looks like she'd always smell too)
I guess yeah Brad Pitt in Meet Joe Black...Ben Affleck in quite a few things, the dude CAN act when he wants to, we've seen it, but he's played a few shiteous roles either while high off his ass or depressed or something, i dont know...
I suppose you could throw a shit load of actors who have been in anything Tarantino's made recently into the mix. I dont know what it is about him lately but his style of writing does not work for A LOT of people, and it leaves them struggling to deal with what's going on and floundering.But that's not necassarily bad acting, just acting outside your comfort zone so I'm not sure where to put that one.
Patricia Arquette in Little Nicky was pretty sad to watch, she's a lovely woman and great actress but her part was so cookie cutter one dimensional that she couldn't help but be like, 10% cute and charming, 90% suck.
The performances of everyone involved in the Charlie's Angels movies? I dont necassarily think all of them are good actors, but they all put in pretty hideous performances. Barring Sam Rockwell but thats because Sam is a God like creature whom we've yet to understand

Terry Kiser in Weekend at Bernie's 2....I just didn't feel like he was a corpse reanimated by a voodoo curse. His performance was lacking the emotional weight of the original. Just a paycheck grab as far as I'm concerned, no pathos at all.

(the commenter formerly known as bucdaddy), I am with you on Jack Nicholson in The Bucket List. I did watch it and holy hell... the whole thing was a terribly unsubtle homage to cliche... and Nicholson is just so very much better than anything he did in it. He phoned it in. He slept through it.

Also I would like to point out that though Judi Dench was indeed in The Chronicles of Riddick, her performance doesn't really fit the thread if she was actually the best part of an otherwise bad movie. Which she was.

@adam: Hey he, don't forget Kilmer's awesome performance in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang!

These two have been criticised and I don't agree:

1) The Lady Killers was great fun and Tom Hanks fit perfectly.

2) Johnny Depp made a good creepy Willy Wonka!

@adam - ummm, Kilmer as Doc Holliday is a joke?! Tell me that you simply forgot about one of the greatest characters ever.

I nominate the sperm in Look Who's Talking. Not for one second did I believe they really wanted that egg.

What the--? Nobody's mentioned the Star Wars prequels yet?! How many good actors gave atrociously bad performances in those? Granted, it was Lucas' fault (it's well known he can't direct actors), but still. If I was Natalie, Liam, Samuel, or Ewan, I'd apologize for that mess.

Billy Crudop in Stage Beauty

Joseph Fienes in Shakespeare in Love

Eric Bana in The Other Boleyn Girl

Larry the Cable Guy in everything (I maintain the guy who is Larry is an amazing actor as he's able to maintain that personna pretty much all the time. But, unfortunately, his personna can't act. He should go back to being a plumber.)

I have to agree with the disagreeal about Death to Smoochy. That movie is fucking gold, and if you don't see it, it's a problem with you, not the movie.

I like the "entire cast" idea. I would nominate Cradle Will Rock. That movie was a steaming greasy turd and it had my hopes so high. I mean look at the fucking cast!!!! But Jesus H., and I mean it's whatever that I disagree with the politics, it still should have been a compelling story but everyone was just flat, flat, flat. I couldn't even get upset about the communism, everybody was so unenthusiastic about what they were doing.

Ben Kingsley in Thunderbirds.

Seriously, what the hell is with SIR Ben Kingsley and these paycheque roles?

Just remembered another one: Josh Brolin in Into the Blue. Awful movie.

Natalie Portman in Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. Decent film, surprisingly, but she obviously phoned it in. And every Star Wars prequel cast member except for Ewan McGregor (still managed to be convincing despite the script) and Hayden Christiansen (he's never been a good actor).

Zooey Deschanel in The Happening. I'm not a fan of hers, but she does have a great deadpan delivery. Why she didn't use that in the movie, I have no idea. In fact, she displayed no emotion whatsoever. During one of the death scenes, the camera zooms in on her and I'm assuming she was supposed to cry. She remained blank, much like the film.

Death to Smoochy is one of the funniest movies ever. Even if Robin Williams does Bicentennial Man flicks forever, I will forgive him for DtS. When he makes the dick shaped cookies and hands them out to the kids, he screams that they're made of dil-dough, I almost pass out laughing. It's so wrong, yet so funny.

Have to agree that Eric Bana sucked in Star Trek. A one-note performance that did nothing for me; but that's also because his plot was pretty boring compared to the rest of the movie.

"Johnny Depp -- Secret Window. I predicted the ending after 10 minutes and wish I had walked out."

Such a good call! I truly don't know what he was thinking.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt - Havoc

My vote goes to Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins in the Lord of The Rings triology.
I don't know if it is his forced accent, his velvety tone, or just plain cheesy dialogue, but I find him cringeworthy.
"I'm glad to be with you, Samwise Gamgee, here at the end of all things" -- Aaaaargh! [Charlie Brown groan]