Worst Movie with the Best Cast?
By
Amy_Amp,
Posted on: 2011-08-23 19:45 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
Ok, I had to chime in.
In a film that had Ben Kingsly (post Oscar), Michael Madsen and Forrest Whittaker they were all out-acted by one woman.
Natasha Henstridge. And she never uttered a word.
Heroes & Villains I give you Species.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114508/
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Cannoball Run was a BLAST. It wasn't supposed to be a "film" it was a chance for a bunch of stars to do silly car stuff, and we got to watch. Kind of like Smokey & the Bandit.|
Originally Posted by Deacon_NA
I wouldn't nominate Magnolia for this particular "award" but I do agree with your sentiment. No other movie has taken me from "really like" to "hate" as quickly as this did when the "wtf ending" happened. Just seeing or hearing any mention of this movie raises my blood pressure a point or 2.
Two movies I'll throw out there, very similar to each other actually. "Cannonball Run" with Burt Reynolds, Peter Fonda, Farrah Fawcett and many many more. "Rat Race" - not as star-studded as the above, but John Cleese, Seth Green, Cuba Gooding Jr (when he was still respected) and most importantly (to raising my hopes) directed by Jerry Zucker. It just didn't work. |
I did however think of another film...er...debacle that took itself seriously - which I think makes it a bad film with a great cast.
Sir Laurnce Olivier, Burgess Meredith, Maggie Smith and Harry Hamlin (ok, that's a step back) I give you...
Clash of the Titans.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082186/
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NO!|
Originally Posted by SilverSablinova
Cannoball Run was a BLAST. It wasn't supposed to be a "film" it was a chance for a bunch of stars to do silly car stuff, and we got to watch. Kind of like Smokey & the Bandit.
I did however think of another film...er...debacle that took itself seriously - which I think makes it a bad film with a great cast. Sir Laurnce Olivier, Burgess Meredith, Maggie Smith and Harry Hamlin (ok, that's a step back) I give you... Clash of the Titans. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082186/ |
You take that back!
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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
English does not borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and rifles through their pockets for loose grammar.
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Going into them James Earl Jones as well. He may not have been a huge name, but he'd into acting for film and TV since '63. Heck, he was in Dr. Strangelove for crying out loud (one of the bomber crew).
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Originally Posted by redtornado
Comming out of them James Earl Jones. Honorable Mention to Mark Hamill for his voice acting of the Joker in Batman Animations.
Going into them PETER CUSHING<-----! OP purposes, Independence Day. |
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The only thing wrong with Costner's Robin Hood was Costner. If I recall correctly, he either gave up trying to learn an English accent, or flat our refused. Heck even Christian Slater took lessons.
I totally disargree witht he OP, I dig Untouchables.
Ocean's 12 and 13 were pretty bad films, but 12 seemed kind of fun because you got the sense that the actors were just having fun with it themselves. There are a great group of actors, with lots of talent involving just about every portion of the film industry and they made those 2 films.
Battlefield Earth is a terrible movie (won't even call it a film), but I would never place Travolta on a list of Best Cast. Forest Whitaker was in it, but at the time, the role he had was very typical.
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I think we have a winner.
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Originally Posted by SilverSablinova
Sir Laurnce Olivier, Burgess Meredith, Maggie Smith and Harry Hamlin (ok, that's a step back) I give you...
Clash of the Titans. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082186/ |
@Quasadu
"We must prepare for DOOM and hope for FREEM." - SirFrederick
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That much I'll agree with. She gave us a pair of the finest performances we'd seen in a long time.
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Originally Posted by SilverSablinova
Ok, I had to chime in.
In a film that had Ben Kingsly (post Oscar), Michael Madsen and Forrest Whittaker they were all out-acted by one woman. Natasha Henstridge. And she never uttered a word. |
- CaptainFoamerang
Silverspar on Kelly Hu: A face that could melt paint off the wall *shivers*
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I really can't. Not that I didn't enjoy laughing at Posideon floating while under the influence (you tell me what made him have that look to unleash The Crack-pipe...er...Krakken) it's just that *at the time* the film took itself seriously.|
Originally Posted by ZephyrWind
NO!
You take that back! |
Also...
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CaptainFoamerang said: That much I'll agree with. She gave us a pair of the finest performances we'd seen in a long time. |
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Originally Posted by SilverSablinova
I really can't. Not that I didn't enjoy laughing at Posideon floating while under the influence (you tell me what made him have that look to unleash The Crack-pipe...er...Krakken) it's just that *at the time* the film took itself seriously.
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But, but...Andromeda
*sigh*
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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
English does not borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and rifles through their pockets for loose grammar.
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Certainly a step in the right direction!|
Originally Posted by ZephyrWind
But, but...Andromeda
*sigh* |
However the rest of it including this gem here...kind of obliterates that IMHO.
http://youtu.be/XMwkSUk0nuo
Good luck fighting that trailer...
:P
Oh and I forgot to add what was the best part of the new Clash...
This guy made a cameo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUHvr...eature=related
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William Shatner once claimed that if you bought the double-DVD special edition of Star Trek V and you had seen it in a theater, he would not only refund your original ticket price, but also come to your house and personally explain to you what he intended the film to be about. Pretty safe promise, as no one who had met criterion 2 would be all the likely to meet criterion 1.
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Originally Posted by Lothic
Supposedly Clooney is so embarrassed by this movie that even to this day he'll gladly give you money out of his own wallet if you ask him for a refund of the ticket you paid to watch that movie.
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OK, OK. But, it was 1981 and I was...13, I think? Looking back on it, my memories of the movie are a lot better than the actual film.
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Originally Posted by SilverSablinova
Certainly a step in the right direction!
However the rest of it including this gem here...kind of obliterates that IMHO. http://youtu.be/XMwkSUk0nuo Good luck fighting that trailer... :P |
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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
English does not borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and rifles through their pockets for loose grammar.
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Sure there are plenty of "What-If" scenarios we could talk about that would have made the original Star Wars trilogy far less historically monumental than it was. But I still would not have bothered to mention it directly in a "Worst movie(s) with the Best Cast" thread. The only reason it need be mentioned here was to show how much better they were than the prequel trilogy. |
Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
Because many elements of them are absolutely terrible and anticipate numerous problems with the awful prequels? A couple of wrong turns at any point in Star Wars' development* would have produced a turkey and ensured a very different course in movies.
* e.g. Casting Sylvester Stallone as Han Solo as Lucas once planned, Fox green-lighting Lucas's third draft of the screenplay instead of requiring more rewrites. |
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It's useful to consider a counterfactually cast Star Wars in this thread as an example of a film with a good cast that could have turned out terribly. Imagine a Star Wars with actors that were Lucas's alternatives: Christopher Walken as Han Solo, Sissy Spacek as Princess Leia, and Toshiro Mifune as Obi-Wan Kenobi. That roster would have looked impressive on a casting sheet, but the odds are that they wouldn't have worked out in the final production.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
Sure there are plenty of "What-If" scenarios we could talk about that would have made the original Star Wars trilogy far less historically monumental than it was. But I still would not have bothered to mention it directly in a "Worst movie(s) with the Best Cast" thread. The only reason it need be mentioned here was to show how much better they were than the prequel trilogy.
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The OP's "presence alone" factor really isn't enough to decide a film's quality, even though that's the way most are marketed these days.
EDIT: Looking over Walken's and Stallone's CVs, I realize that they were still more or less unknowns at the time of Star Wars and broke out only a few years later. Kurt Russell was probably the biggest name down for Solo, and he'd probably have been pretty good.
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Well I'll at least agree with the idea that a movie with a "great" cast will never alone guarantee a great movie even though, as you say, Hollywood relies on "big names" to sway people to go see them. I just don't think we need to dwell too much on hypothetical "what-ifs" with specific movies like Star Wars when there are plenty of other real life examples of bad movies with big name casts we could point out. I guess I just wonder why we'd construct a bad example for argument's sake when there are plenty of pre-made bad examples to poke fun at already? |
Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
It's useful to consider a counterfactually cast Star Wars in this thread as an example of a film with a good cast that could have turned out terribly. Imagine a Star Wars with actors that were Lucas's alternatives: Christopher Walken as Han Solo, Sissy Spacek as Princess Leia, and Toshiro Mifune as Obi-Wan Kenobi. That roster would have looked impressive on a casting sheet, but the odds are that they wouldn't have worked out in the final production.
The OP's "presence alone" factor really isn't enough to decide a film's quality, even though that's the way most are marketed these days. |
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Like Clash of the Titans..!
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Originally Posted by Lothic
Well I'll at least agree with the idea that a movie with a "great" cast will never alone guarantee a great movie even though, as you say, Hollywood relies on "big names" to sway people to go see them. I just don't think we need to dwell too much on hypothetical "what-ifs" with specific movies like Star Wars when there are plenty of other real life examples of bad movies with big name casts we could point out. I guess I just wonder why we'd construct a bad example for argument's sake when there are plenty of pre-made bad examples to poke fun at already?
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I suppose I'm unsure even what kind of an argument to make. I mean, how many great actors* are there who have made only good movies - how much worse are the odds that they'd all be cast together? Enough good actors make bad movies over the course of their careers that talent pile-ups occur regularly.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
I guess I just wonder why we'd construct a bad example for argument's sake when there are plenty of pre-made bad examples to poke fun at already?
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* Even, say, John Cazale distinguishes himself from his co-stars Al Pacino and Robert Duval mainly through dying tragically young.
While not nearly as high on the scale as other peoples' choices, I'm gonna add Alien: Resurrection to the list. It was full of really good character actors, all stuck playing one-dimensional characters in a mediocre film that could have been better had the original version been made.
Positron: "There are no bugs [in City of Heroes], just varying degrees of features."
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The question of bringing up the Original Trilogy isn't so much in how good or bad the movie is. The premise of this thread is "Worst movie with the best cast." The original trilogy is far from having an all-star cast, unless you happen to be British, and then you'd love Guinness and Cushing (even if they're only in one movie's worth of time put together). The actors that portrayed the characters are iconic, but that's not the same thing as being a good actor.
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Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
Because many elements of them are absolutely terrible and anticipate numerous problems with the awful prequels? A couple of wrong turns at any point in Star Wars' development* would have produced a turkey and ensured a very different course in movies.
* e.g. Casting Sylvester Stallone as Han Solo as Lucas once planned, Fox green-lighting Lucas's third draft of the screenplay instead of requiring more rewrites. |
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That's funny, I feel most of the same way about Alien3. I think I'm one of the seven people who actually liked Alien: Resurrection.|
Originally Posted by Goliath Bird Eater
While not nearly as high on the scale as other peoples' choices, I'm gonna add Alien: Resurrection to the list. It was full of really good character actors, all stuck playing one-dimensional characters in a mediocre film that could have been better had the original version been made.
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For what it was supposed to be delivering, I thought The Expendables fell short on delivery, though it did an excellent job of why you typically want your action star to be surrounded by eloquent villains. That way someone in the movie could be understood!
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I liked Alien: Resurrection as well. Only thing particularly bad about it was the disturbing as hell human/alien hybrid thing at the end. Considering there's been like 6 movies with Aliens in them, I'd sooner put Resurrection in the better half than the worse half.
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Originally Posted by Attercap
That's funny, I feel most of the same way about Alien3. I think I'm one of the seven people who actually liked Alien: Resurrection.
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- CaptainFoamerang
Silverspar on Kelly Hu: A face that could melt paint off the wall *shivers*
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Don't get me wrong when I call Alien: Resurrection mediocre. I like the film; it just could have been much better than it was. And I really like Alien 3 too.
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Originally Posted by Attercap
That's funny, I feel most of the same way about Alien3. I think I'm one of the seven people who actually liked Alien: Resurrection.
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Positron: "There are no bugs [in City of Heroes], just varying degrees of features."
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The effects on Alien 3 really didn't age well, and the dialogue was forgettable, but perhaps Alien 3 might get more hate than it deserves because it followed Aliens.|
Originally Posted by Goliath Bird Eater
Don't get me wrong when I call Alien: Resurrection mediocre. I like the film; it just could have been much better than it was. And I really like Alien 3 too.
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Out of curiosity, what was Resurrection supposed to be about originally?
- CaptainFoamerang
Silverspar on Kelly Hu: A face that could melt paint off the wall *shivers*
Someone play my AE arc! "The Heart of Statesman" ID: 343405
Two movies I'll throw out there, very similar to each other actually.
"Cannonball Run" with Burt Reynolds, Peter Fonda, Farrah Fawcett and many many more.
"Rat Race" - not as star-studded as the above, but John Cleese, Seth Green, Cuba Gooding Jr (when he was still respected) and most importantly (to raising my hopes) directed by Jerry Zucker. It just didn't work.
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