One of the things that I really like about doing The Best/Worst lists is the variety of topics that are available. I’ve done lists about soundtracks, remakes, horror movies, and a multitude of other movie-related stuff. But the one thing that I have yet to cover is the best and worst casting. Obviously, one of the most important things about movies is not just the script and the story, but you also need great characters. To play those characters, though, you need top-notch actors that can really sell those roles. Over the past century, we’ve seen a lot of amazing casts. Some of these roles were designed for these particular actors. Sometimes, though, you do end up with actors that just weren’t right for that particular movie. It happens periodically, and I generally don’t knock the actor/s for doing the best with what they’ve been given, but every so often an actor feels so out of place it’s not even funny. So, let’s get into what I consider to be the best and worst casting decisions ever made.
The Worst: Brad Pitt-Troy
It goes without saying that Brad Pitt is one of the biggest celebrities on the planet. He’s a fantastic actor. Some of the best movies he’s done are iconic: Se7en, Fight Club, Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood, and Snatch are incredibly brilliant. However, somebody that it was a great idea to cast him as one of Greek mythology’s greatest warriors: Achilles in Wolfgang Peterson’s Troy. Don’t get me wrong, Pitt acquits himself pretty well in the action department, but when it comes to delivering the dialogue that was written, it doesn’t work. I get why he was cast, but he still seems out of place with the likes of Sean Bean, Brian Cox, and Brendan Gleeson, who owned the roles they were in. Again, he does the best with what he’s given, but that was a role that should’ve gone to someone else.
The Best: Hugh Jackman-Logan a.k.a. Wolverine
Hugh Jackman, without a doubt, is one of the entertainment industry’s greatest performers. Whether he’s doing comedies, musicals, or dramas, he puts in 150 percent into everything that he does. But the role that really gave him the spotlight was Wolverine in 2000’s X-Men. People complained that Jackman was too tall for the role. Here’s the thing though, his height didn’t matter. What he put into the role did. Not only did he get physically jacked for the role, but he also gave the character a quiet, skeptical humanity that many of us would identify with. But when the character is truly unleashed, Hugh Jackman goes all in, and there are times when he’s terrifying as Wolverine. It’s a role that defined Hugh Jackman’s career. Sadly, he would hang up his claws after nearly years with 2017’s Logan, the final standalone Wolverine film. What a finale it was. Nobody has embodied a character as long as Hugh Jackman has at 17 years. Regardless of how the movie ended up being, you could always count on Jackman doing his best.
The Worst: Everybody-Alexander
Oliver Stone’s Alexander is one of the most interesting movies ever made. It’s not that it was good, it wasn’t. There was no doubt about the passion that was put into the film. But the problem with the writing cast a lot of issues for audiences when it was released. It was too boring. I didn’t hate the movie. I found a lot to like about it. The sets, the costumes, and the attention to detail was fantastic. But the big problem here was the casting. I’ve never seen an ensemble cast so out of place in an historical epic. Colin Farrell was too much of a pretty boy to be playing the greatest military tactician in history. He did the best he could, but he didn’t quite have the experience or the gravitas to carry a role like that. Angelina Jolie as Alexander’s mother was an absolute joke. I don’t know what accent she was using, but if she had a mustache, she would’ve been twirling it. Alexander is a fascinating movie that’s worth watching, but good grief, the acting was not that great.
The Best: Everybody – The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Where Alexander managed to get everything wrong with casting, Peter Jackson did everything right when it came to casting The Lord of the Rings. There’s not a single character or actor that feels out of place here. Each actor really embodies the character they were cast for. Ian McKellen was the wise old wizard and Viggo Mortenson was the lone, wandering swordsman with a destiny. Even Andy Serkis was perfect as Gollum. Hugo Weaving as Elrond, Christopher Lee as Saruman. Even the lesser characters like Grima got good actors like Brad Dourif and Karl Urban. This was the ensemble to rule them all. Sean Astin was simply brilliant as Samwise Gamgee. Elijah Wood brought a pure innocence to Frodo Baggins, and even the late Sir Ian Holm gave Bilbo Baggins some serious weight. The Lord of the Rings is not only one of the greatest movie trilogies of all time, but also one of the greatest adaptations. There is nothing I don’t love about The Lord of the Rings movies.
The Best/Worst: Arnold Schwarzegger – Batman and Robin
If there was a cinematic equivalent of a splitting head-ache, Batman and Robin would be it. This is widely regarded as one of the WORST comic book movies of all time. It’s not hard to see why. The writing is god-awful, the visual effects are ridiculous…and Bat-Nipples and a Bat-Credit Card. Are you fucking kidding me? Here’s the thing about the casting: Not everybody’s out of place. George Clooney isn’t actually awful and Uma Thurman has this really bizarre allure about her that’s hard to ignore. But the best and worst casting of this movie has to be Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze. As a huge fan of Schwarzenegger, this was NOT one of his best choices, yet he’s one of the most entertaining things about the film. Yeah, the ice puns are frosty(not sorry at all), but Arnie is clearly having fun here. It’s kind of infectious, really. But make no mistake: Batman and Robin is really, really bad.
The Best: Daniel Craig – James Bond
Boy, HERE’S one that pissed people off. When it was first announced that Daniel Craig was cast to play James Bond in Casino Royale, people really got up in arms over the idea of a blond, blue-eyed James Bond. Funnily enough, HIS take on James Bond is one of the best. The character got a gritty reboot that made him far more human. THIS James Bond made mistakes, got the shit beat out of him on more than one occasion, and had a tendency to piss off the people that he worked for. Daniel Craig was perfect for THIS iteration. He ended up playing the character longer than anyone else, and had a conclusion that you never saw before in a Bond movie. Sure, No Time To Die had its issues, but the overall film was really good. But Casino Royale is the best of Daniel Craig’s Bond.
The Worst: Franco Nero – Enter The Ninja
Let’s ignore the fact that while Enter The Ninja introduced the American people to ninjas and Sho Kosugi, who would make ninja movies with him in the lead, Enter The Ninja was incredibly awful. The film’s awful writing and action can be chalked up to the fact that this was a Menahaim Golan and Yorum Globus production. Let’s also ignore the fact that our hero is a ninja clad all in white. During the day. Where EVERYBODY can see him. The fact that they cast an Italian who barely spoke any English in a martial arts movie is beyond ridiculous. Nero had to be dubbed over. Not only that, but he’s not a martial artist, and you can tell in this scene. It’s so bad, it’s laughable. That’s not to say that Franco Nero is a bad actor, but he never should’ve been cast in this movie. But that’s what you get with the Cannon Film Group.
The Best: Rick Moranis – Spaceballs
What can I say about Spaceballs that hasn’t been said a million times before? It’s one of the most beloved movie spoofs of all time thanks to the brilliant writing and directing of Mel Brooks. The real funny thing here is that it’s not just making fun of movies like Star Wars and Star Trek. It’s an homage to them as well. The casting in this movie is wild. Bill Pullman as Lonestarr, Daphne Zuniga as Princess Vespa, and John Candy as Barf? It’s so ridiculous it works. But I have to be honest here, the guy that really steals the show is Rick Moranis as Dark Helmet. Moranis was one of the funniest actors to come out of the 80s, but his turn as Dark Helmet is as iconic as the villain he’s spoofing, Darth Vader.
The Worst/Best: Raul Julia – Street Fighter
Video game-based movies are notorious for being really bad. Street Fighter is…one that people seemed to have soften up towards lately. It’s in a “so bad, it’s good” category all its own. Yeah, it’s awful, and the casting is highly questionable, especially Jean-Claude Van Damme as Colonel Guile. However, like Batman and Robin earlier on this list, the best part of this movie is the villain. Raul Julia plays M. Bison, a renegade warlord. Sadly, Mr. Julia would pass away before the film was released, but his performance is likely why most people remember this movie. He gave everything he had, and was so much fun to watch.
The Best: Michael Biehn – The Terminator
The original Terminator is nothing short of a classic science fiction movie. This was the film that put James Cameron on the map. The writing, the story-telling, the acting. Everything here is top-notch, especially for a low-budget indie film. Now everybody celebrates Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor as one of the best heroines in film alongside Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley. But I feel that the unsung hero here is Michael Biehn as future soldier Kyle Reese. Michael plays the character with such conviction that you absolutely believe every word that this character says, and it makes you fear for the future. That’s how good he is. Now, Anton Yelchin would play the character in Terminator: Salvation, and play it well, but it’s Biehn’s performance that really makes the character stand out.
The Worst: Nick Stahl/Christian Bale – Terminator 3/Salvation
I don’t know which John Connor performance is worse: Nick Stahl or Christian Bale. I enjoyed these movies a lot, but they’ve got problems. Nick Stahl’s performance was so bland and so unemotional he came across as a machine, and no the irony is not lost on me. Christian Bale suffers from the exact opposite problem. He goes so over-the-top, that it basically becomes a clown show. I like Christian Bale as an actor. He’s amazing. But far too often he slips back into his Batman voice in this movie. Edward Furlong set the bar pretty high for playing the character as a kid, but if you’re going to play the adult version, you need to bring more emotional weight to the role. I just didn’t feel that from these versions of John Connor.
The Best: Samuel L. Jackson – Pulp Fiction
This had to make the list. I mean this particular speech couldn’t have been done by anybody other than Jackson himself. First of all, this is classic Tarantino, and secondly, this put Samuel L. Jackson on the map as an actor. It’s an absolutely brilliant delivery. The movie itself is a bit of a mixed big, in my opinion, but I do love the dialogue that Quentin Tarantino writes, and this scene is just perfection.
Casting can make the difference between a memorable film and a completely forgettable one. Sometimes casting works, sometimes it doesn’t. But a movie doesn’t necessarily fail because the cast isn’t what it should be. That comes down to the writing and how talented the cast is. These are some of the best and worst casting decisions that I’ve seen. Let me know what you think.