Tom Hardy – “This Means War”
It took a little while for people to catch on — after a high-profile early start in “Star Trek: Nemesis,” he disappeared for a few years — but by the start of this decade, Tom Hardy was becoming acknowledged as one of the most exciting young actors around. He broke out with Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Bronson,” and then juggled both commercial success and terrific reviews with his appearances in “Inception,” “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and “Warrior.” Megastardom seemed all but guaranteed, but then came his first major studio lead, in McG’s “This Means War.” The film, an action-comedy about two spies who realize they’re dating the same woman, had been kicked about for years, and rejected by the likes of Chris Rock, Sam Worthington and Seth Rogen, before Hardy and the hot-off-“Star Trek” Chris Pine were worn down enough to sign on, with Reese Witherspoon as the object of their affections. As one Playlister put it, “everyone in this should be so ashamed. This was even a step down for Til Schweiger.” Tone-deaf, emptily noisy, regularly offensive and deeply stupid, it seemed to put Hardy off the rom-com genre forever (which is sort of a shame: he’s actually quite charming in the film), though thankfully he rebounded in other genres quite quickly, and notably has steered clear of hacky studio movies like this ever since.
Holly Hunter – “Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice”
To say that the DC Film Universe has so far wasted the talents of some great actors is accurate, but also doesn’t quite sum up the truth: the DC Film Universe put Jai Courtney and Cara Delevingne in the same movie and still managed to make you feel that they deserved better material. But some are more wasted than others, and even in a film that likely still wakes Ben Affleck, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons and Scoot McNairy up in a cold sweat, it’s Holly Hunter that you feel the worst for. One of our very finest actors, Hunter hasn’t always gotten the roles she deserves (indeed, she was absent from movie screens entirely between 2005 and 2012, disgracefully), but has been on a bit of an upswing recently. In theory, the idea of her getting some major exposure and a nice payday in a superhero movie isn’t the worst thing in the world, but Hunter’s role, as a senator who is investigating Superman because PLOT REASONS, is a less-than-nothing part. Perhaps it might have turned into something with the right people in charge, but here, Hunter is confronted with a jar of Jesse Eisenberg’s piss and then blown up. Which, on the bright side, means she gets to skip “Justice League” at least.
Tommy Lee Jones – “Man Of The House”/“Mechanic: Resurrection”
For such a serious-minded actor and filmmaker, a man who has been the grumpy face of goodness in a despair-filled world for the Coen Brothers, and adapted Cormac McCarthy himself, Tommy Lee Jones has never been afraid to take a gig that makes him look silly. The success of “The Fugitive,” which won him an Oscar, helped make him a go-to villain in dumb movies like “Blown Away” and “Batman Forever,” chewing through the scenery in a fairly major way, while other questionable picks like “U.S. Marshals” and “Volcano” continued to litter his career. Something like a nadir was reached with Stephen Herek’s “Man Of The House,” a brutally bad comedy in which Jones has to pose as a coach to a group of University Of Texas cheerleaders. It’s a film that looks like it’s a fake movie inside another movie, and flopped badly, but we imagine likely landed Jones a hefty paycheck that enabled him to make his excellent directorial debut “The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada,” so we’ll forgive him. Whether similar greatness results from Jones’ recent, badly facial-haired turn in Jason Statham sequel “Mechanic: Resurrection” remains to be seen.
Ben Kingsley – “BloodRayne”
A well-respected and prolific actor, Ben Kingsley has been on a pretty decent run in recent years, working a couple of times with Martin Scorsese, and stealing the show in the Marvel universe with “Iron Man 3.” But he’s also never been averse to a quick paycheck (recent jobs include “Collide,” “Self/less” and a vocal turn in the direct-to-video “Dragonheart 3”), something that reached something of a nadir with 2005’s “BloodRayne.” Adapted from a video game, it stars Kristanna Loken (who played the bad guy in “Terminator 3”) as a half-human, half-vampire in 18th-century Romania who sets out for revenge on her father, the evil vampire king Kagan (Kingsley). Plenty of Kingsley’s contemporaries made similar decision around this time — Jeremy Irons in “Dungeons & Dragons,” Bill Nighy in “Underworld” — but Kingsley’s is particularly egregious in coming in a post-Oscar-nomination run of terrible for-the-cash jobs (“Thunderbirds,” “Suspect Zero,” “A Sound Of Thunder”), and for making those other movies look like masterpieces, given that it comes from Z-movie king Uwe Boll, already generally regarded as one of the worst filmmakers working. Among a low-rent cast (Michael Madsen, Michelle Rodriguez, Matthew Davis), Kingsley seems to stick out like even more of a sore thumb.
Melissa Leo – “Olympus Has Fallen”
Again, we certainly don’t begrudge any of these actors for using newfound fame and acclaim to make a bit of cash, especially when it’s an actor like Melissa Leo, who worked for decades, mostly in movies almost no one saw, before finding awards success with “Frozen River” and “The Fighter.” For the most part, Leo’s done interesting stuff when she’s taken bigger paychecks since (“Oblivion,” “Prisoners,” “The Big Short”), but that said, we really wish she’d held out for a better offer than “Olympus Has Fallen” and its sequel. Antoine Fuqua’s red-meat actioner, which sees Secret Service agent Gerard Butler head-stab his way around the White House after it’s taken over by North Korean terrorists who’ve kidnapped the President, is full of actors who should know better but frequently don’t — Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Aaron Eckhart, Robert Forster. But Leo’s normally above something like this, so it’s disappointing to see her play the Secretary Of Defense in such a relatively anonymous manner. Still, that’s marginally less disappointing than watching her in the even-more-racist sequel “London Has Fallen,” where she’s demoted to sitting around situation rooms looking worried.