The Most Phoned-In Performances of All Time

[Loki882]

Christopher Eccleston as Malekith in Thor: TDW. Although that may be because the character is written so poorly and one-dimensionally in the script that even an actor as charismatic as Eccleston couldn't stop Malekith from being boring and lame. He has nothing to work with.

 

[Rowsdower!]

Christopher Eccleston as Malekith in Thor: TDW. Although that may be because the character is written so poorly and one-dimensionally in the script that even an actor as charismatic as Eccleston couldn't stop Malekith from being boring and lame. He has nothing to work with.

Good one. I mean to mention him earlier and I forgot. Yeah, I'm not sure if it's his fault or not because the character was such a generic villain, but he really didn't bring anything to the table.

 

[Marvolo]

Christopher Eccleston as Malekith in Thor: TDW. Although that may be because the character is written so poorly and one-dimensionally in the script that even an actor as charismatic as Eccleston couldn't stop Malekith from being boring and lame. He has nothing to work with.

This. It's not even really a performance or a character. More a plot device if even that. I can't really place blame tho cause I don't know whether it is the actors fault (I doubt this given the actor) or the director, the script, or the editing.

 

[Rowsdower!]

Yeah, I'm not sure about that either. It seemed like he was barely even in it. It might have just been the writing, which I thought was pretty bad across the board. Odin acted like a completely different character than he was in the first movie. In Thor, he was compassionate and was only stern with Thor because Thor was being an arrogant fool. In Thor 2, he just came off like a cantankerous old man telling kids to get off his lawn.

 

[Octoberist]

I saw a random movie with Chevy Chase recently called 'Modern Problems'. Now young Chevy Chase was awesome but my God he was awful. The whole movie was awful. Chase looked bored half of the time.

 

[Rowsdower!]

Never heard of that film but it doesn't surprise me. Apparently he was hell to work with on Community.

 

[Octoberist]

Yeah, I've never heard of 'Modern Problems' too. My friends and I picked it on Netflix because of the funny screen grabs. But alas, it was a slow slog of a movie with no real jokes. It's quite bizarre.

 

[thejon93]

-Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever was one of the most bizarre performances I've ever seen. Just terrible. The way he laughs at The Riddler's "jokes" just makes me cringe. Jim Carrey was just as god-awful in this film.
-Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, I hate this film so much. Carrey's disgusting physical "comedy" scenes make me squeamish in every way. In no other film have I hated Jim Carrey more so than in this film, this was just an atrocious and highly overrated mess of a film that I hope to never (EVER) see (EVER) again.
-Taylor Lautner in Abduction. How I brought myself to watch this movie, I'll never know. The scene that I was most offended by was when him and his girlfriend are looking at pictures of missing kids and making fun of them, that was over-the-line and I hope I never have to see Lautner's face on-screen again for this travesty of a film.
-Chris Tucker in The Fifth Element, one of the most grating voices I'll ever know in Hollywood and the only thing that derails an otherwise excellent sci-fi classic.
-Keanu Reeves in Dracula, need I say more?

 

[Octoberist]

What's sad about Tommy Lee Jones is that he would've been an excellent Two-Face. But instead, he's constantly trying to one-up Jim Carrey, which is a fool's errand.

 

[Schlosser85]

Chris Tucker in The Fifth Element is incredibly obnoxious. He gets way too much screentime. He's meant to be "comic relief", but Gary Oldman is funnier than him.

 

[thejon93]

Chris Tucker in The Fifth Element is incredibly obnoxious. He gets way too much screentime. He's meant to be "comic relief", but Gary Oldman is funnier than him.

Totally agree. I'd love to see a director's cut or something where they get rid of most of Tucker's scenes (which were largely unnecessary anyway) and replace it with more of Milla Jovovich and Gary Oldman's characters. I thought that Jovovich was more of the main character in it than Bruce Willis was, after all he never even meets Gary Oldman in the film and he's supposed to be the main villain! That's definitely a rare thing to find in Hollywood films, where the main hero doesn't meet the main villain (sometimes this happens in a franchise, but eventually the hero and villain encounter each other).

 

[Octoberist]

Overall I think The Fifth Element doesn't get enough love despite Tucker's character. I love the Moebius designs.

 

[thejon93]

Overall I think The Fifth Element doesn't get enough love despite Tucker's character. I love the Moebius designs.

I loved everything about the film, expect for Tucker. I couldn't believe how terrible he was when I first watched it, he almost forced me to stop watching at a certain point because there's only so much high-pitched waling that I can take. Same with Rush Hours 2 and 3, I liked the first one (because his voice is normal), but something annoying happened to his voice between the first film and the second.

 

[PyroChamber]

What's sad about Tommy Lee Jones is that he would've been an excellent Two-Face. But instead, he's constantly trying to one-up Jim Carrey, which is a fool's errand.

The only time in that movie we even got a true Two-Face was in that first monologue with that guard.

BTW, that guard was hamming it up too.

 

[Octoberist]

I did enjoy when the Guard was screaming 'My shoes are melting' though. He was like a human version of Piglet.

 

[Eddie Dean]

You might not like Chris Tucker in The Fifth Element but in no way is he phoning it in.

 

[Maximus One]

Yea these last few comments haven't been about phoned in performances at all. They're just people *****ing about stuff they don't like.

 

[redhawk23]

Chris Tucker in The Fifth Element is incredibly obnoxious. He gets way too much screentime. He's meant to be "comic relief", but Gary Oldman is funnier than him.

But was that phoned in? It may have been bizarre and annoying but that doesn't mean Tucker wasn't committed.

Edit, what others have said.

 

[Octoberist]

It wasn't phoned in. It was just a bad performance. I think he's worse than Jar Jar.

 

[Maximus One]

I think his voice was annoying but as a kid seeing it in theaters Tucker cracked me up. Plus, me and everybody I ever knew were obsessed with Friday and of course Smokey was everyone's favorite character so yea, I actually liked Ruby Rod. As an adult when I watch it yea, its annoying as all Hell but I loved it back in the day.

 

[Maximus One]

What about Nicolas Cage in Con Air? It's like he sorta tried with the accent but there's almost just no emotion in him in that movie at all.

 

[Sawyer]

-Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, I hate this film so much. Carrey's disgusting physical "comedy" scenes make me squeamish in every way. In no other film have I hated Jim Carrey more so than in this film, this was just an atrocious and highly overrated mess of a film that I hope to never (EVER) see (EVER) again.

Someone's feeling over-dramatic...

 

[MrMaooz]

No way in hell Jim Carrey phoned Ace Ventura in.

 

[thejon93]

I'm saying that I felt that it was a phoned-in performance as in the studio demanded he be in that role since people enjoy his acting. Like I said, the first Rush Hour was actually very entertaining, I liked that movie a lot and I was surprised, but the sequels got on my nerves and I couldn't stand them. I think all the performances were bad because the studio "phoned-in" the wrong actors for the roles. While I think Tommy Lee Jones is a great actor, he was over-the-top ridiculous in a very odd and unusual fashion in Batman Forever and I can't stand that movie because him and Carrey are such laughable threats compared to Jack Nicholson's The Joker, Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman and Danny DeVito's Penguin that it's hilarious. They can't keep a straight-face for more than a second, it's terrible.

 

[thejon93]

Someone's feeling over-dramatic...

Hey, I enjoyed Dumb & Dumber and The Mask (even The Cable Guy), but I really didn't like Ace Ventura at all. When Nature Calls surprised me more because he had a better supporting cast of characters to work off of, I enjoyed that movie, but the first one was just Jim Carrey as Ace Ventura and I thought it was a little too much.