There are some actors that almost transcend film itself. They pick fantastic roles, lend the films they star in credibility and diginity, and generally exist at a higher level than the rabble of younger actors around them. I say generally, because sometimes a very talented actor has alimony to pay, or spent all his money in the 80s, or gets a little bit too high when their monthly script dump ends up on their desk, and end up picking something they wish they could get their grandkids to delete from IMDB.
This doesn’t mean they are suddenly bad actors for picking a bad role, it just means we get to make fun of them on the internet using big words and hyperbole.
Ben Kingsley ? Bloodrayne
Why They Are Great: Sir Ben Kingsley, and he didn’t go to eight years of Sir School for us to call him Mr., became a standout on stage and won an Academy Award for playing Ghandi in his first starring film role. Can’t really shake a stick at that, especially if your Ghandi since you could probably use that stick as a weapon.
Why This Movie Sucks: What an easy way to start – two words; Uwe Bol. Actually make that three words; Fuck Uwe Bol. The German director is the front of what I can only assume is a lucrative money laundering scene that, for some reason, relies on setting world records for ruining video game adaptations. BloodRayne is one of the most egregious of Uwe Bol’s tax write offs, and it is so bad that the only way he could think to promote it was to constantly mention the Cinemax quality lesbian scene between the lady Terminator and the Spanish girl from LOST that always gets arrested.
Willem Dafoe ? Body of Evidence
Why They Are Great: Willem Dafoe is just one of those guys that finds a way to be interesting no matter what. While he tends to play similar types of villain characters in all his movies, he plays them with subtle differences that give way to nearly manic moments of brilliance. He takes immense chances with his selections, which has lead to him starring in some pretty crappy crap. No crap, is as crappy as the crap that is Body of Evidence though. Not even Speed 2.
Why This Movie Sucks: One word; Madonna. Hey that was even easier than the last one.
Nicholas Cage ? The Wicker Man
Haha! Just kidding, I said great actors.
Christopher Walken ? Envy
Why They Are Great: He’s fucking Christopher Walken. He might have entered Chuck Norris territory on the ?liking him a lot to be ironic? scale, but Chuck Norris is an outlandish asshole and Christopher Walken carried a pocket watch in his ass for years.
Why This Movie Sucks: Christopher Walken, much like Willem Dafoe above, has been in some crap. It is unavoidable when you star in a movie every three days for six hundred and forty years. Hell, he even got conned into being in Gigli. Yet, instead of that or that awful ping pong movie, we’re going with Envy. Why you ask? This is a movie that starred Ben Stiller and Jack Black, and while that may seem truly dreadful enough for anybody who possesses even a shred of taste, the plot of this nearly criminally bad movie involved the invention of a product that vaporizes dogshit. Seriously. Dogshit. This movie got written, pitched, produced, filmed, and released. Christopher Walken read this script, saw Ben Stiller in it, and still decided to be in it. The only explanation is that he thought a movie about dogshit starring dogshit is an art house level of meta.
Michael Caine ? Jaws: The Revenge
Why They Are Great: Michael Caine was a box office powerhouse in England during his prime, not to mention dashing as hell, and found a nice little renaissance in his later years after winning an Academy Award in the Cider House Rules. He is probably always going to be remembered as Alfred Pennyworth now, but I’ll remember him as being part of the saddest scene in Children of Men which is like being the blackest dress in a goth girl’s wardrobe.
Why This Movie Sucks: They made four Jaws movies, only the first one was good, and each movie after it was exactly 50% as watchable as the one before it. This is the last one they made. You do the math. Jaws 4 took the concept of an unrelenting, nearly invincible, killer shark the size of a school bus and figured out a way to make that even more unrealistic by giving it the ability to seek vengeance. In a way I guess Jaws: The Revenge was ahead of its time, as it would be nearly fifteen years before the Street Sharks showed us that sharks were capable of revenge. And roller hockey.
Sean Connery ? Zardoz
Why They Are Great: He starred in the intensely underrated Outland, had a turn in Highlander before it got stupid, was King Agammemnon in Time Bandits, brought forth Indiana Jones from his loins, and oh yeah, was arguably the best Bond.
Why This Movie Sucks: Zardoz is a truly bizarre post apocalyptic film. The people of Earth now worship an enormous stone head that can fly, vomit guns from its mouth, and preach about the inherent evilness of penises. Sean Connery spends most of the movie prancing about in thigh high boots and a slightly less revealing version of Borat’s bathing suit. When he isn’t wearing that, he is wearing a bridal gown and trying to overthrow a dictatorship of incredibly apathetic immortal beings while?maneuvering?through a?labyrinth?of 1970s social commentary as filtered through a bong stem.
Wait, what the hell am I talking about? This is the greatest movie ever made.