20 Fantastic Performances in “Bad” Movies

"Bad" is a subjective term. But most agree that these films are weak, even if there is a performance that threatens to save them.

It goes without saying that "Good" and "Bad" are fully subjective terms. But, there are certain projects that the majority of fans have deemed lacking, in comparison to either the source material, films of its kind, films of its time, or their own expectations. These movies share not only that general reputation (As well as their respective cultish fanbases) but a particular asset as well.

Specifically, at least one cast member turns in a performance that is better than the movie itself. Perhaps the actor knew they were in something that wasn't turning out as all had hoped, or perhaps they understood the assignment and turned in a perfectly-modulated performance while others failed to do the same. Either way, these movies have a performance that stands out.

Like Paul Dano in The Girl Next Door, it's odd to watch someone of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman's talent star in a low-brow comedy. And Along Came Polly is very much a low-brow comedy.

Mostly unfunny, often uncomfortable, and led by two distinctly unlikable characters, the movie is really only worth watching for Hoffman. As former child star Sandy Lyle, it's obvious the acting legend is having fun, even if the surrounding movie is a slog.

An almost legendary misfire that still dominated the 2007 Summer Movie Season, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3 has a reputation that precedes it. But, there are aspects that work for it, e.g. Thomas Haden Church as the heartbreaking Flint Marko AKA Sandman.

Along with a gorgeous, CGI-fueled transformation scene, Sandman is bolstered above the film's other two villains (Venom and Goblin Jr.) by a concrete and relatable arc about losing one's family. Church sells the smaller moments, making them some of the film's best.

For the longest time, it looked like 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade would be the last adventure for the fedora-wearing, whip-waving cinema icon. Then, director Steven Spielberg returned to direct the hotly anticipated summer blockbuster Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Even in a summer as crowded as 2008's (Iron Man, The Dark Knight, etc.) Crystal Skull was a major hit. But, just about everyone who saw it either hated it or just shrugged. 2023's Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny serves as an attempt to wipe the sour taste from the audience's mouths, even if it was a joy to see Harrison Ford back in the role, giving it his all at the age of 64.

Some characters from film history are very hard to recast. Others are outright impossible, e.g. Robert Englund as A Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Krueger.

Jackie Early Haley (Watchmen) is a terrific performer, and he can sell scary better than many, but Freddy is so inextricably linked to Englund that anything else is just a substitute. And that is what Haley feels like: A cookie-cutter, copy-and-pasted version of Krueger with worse dialogue and a CGI face. But Haley gives it his all, and any success the film finds is because of him.

As a diversionary superhero movie, Iron Man 2 is a little underrated. As a follow-up to Jon Favreau's magnificent Iron Man, however, the director's own sequel drops the ball. It's unfocused, which feels less like Favreau's choice and more like the necessity of setting up The Avengers (to be fair, it would be even less organic to do this groundwork in Thor or Captain America's first movies).

Iron Man 2 also has one too many villains, with Mickey Rourke's hokey performance as Whiplash proving particularly divisive. But then there's the film's secondary villain, Justin Hammer. As Hammer, Sam Rockwell makes pathetic and villainous lovable, because it's pretty much impossible for the actor not to do so. If any character needs to return to the MCU it is Justin Hammer.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is one of those movies that attempt to use a world-shaking tragedy (in this case 9/11) to make a point. It's also one of those movies that does so in the most saccharine, almost unbearable way possible.

The fact that it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture is a true head-scratcher, even with the presence of Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, and Viola Davis. With that being said, the film's other nomination, for Best Supporting Actor, was more than deserved. The Exorcist's Max von Sydow plays the grandfather to the film's protagonist: An autistic boy who lost his father in the tragedy. Called "The Renter," Sydow's character only communicates via a notepad with either the word yes or the word no written on it. Sydow is only in a stretch of the film, but it's the stretch worth watching.

Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy doesn't have the best reputation, nor should it, but there's some merit if one looks hard enough. This is especially true of the first installment, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (though the second installment, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug does have a great sequence with the titular antagonist).

An Unexpected Journey was refreshing (at least at first) because not only did it feature familiar faces like Ian McKellan, it had The Lord of the Rings' Jackson again behind the camera leading the show. But something was off; the effects were too glossy, and the narrative was somehow simultaneously overstuffed and lacking many memorable scenes. In the end, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is good for two things: Bilbo's elongated scene with Gollum, and Martin Freeman's sterling performance as the former character.

Widely considered the MCU's weakest film (At least of the first few phases), Alan Taylor's Thor: The Dark World is a cheap-looking and forgettable film with very few saving graces. The biggest one, unquestionably, is Loki's Tom Hiddleston, providing what is quite possibly his best performance in an MCU film to date.

Disney+'s Loki ended up fleshing out the character a bit more, but the character's vulnerability in The Dark World is truly compelling. This is especially true after losing his mother, Frigga.

David Ayer's Suicide Squad wasn't all his, as the studio's input consistently altered the film's DNA until what hit the big screen (with much hype) was more incoherent than anything else. The film essentially plops a few woefully underdeveloped characters in the middle of a city that's gone to hell and has them wander around until the central, possession-fueled conflict is resolved.

But there are saving graces, e.g. the three characters James Gunn would go on to include in 2021's infinitely superior The Suicide Squad. Among these three is Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn. Not only the most interesting character of the film but the best performance bar none (arguably the best of the DCU), Harley is a beautiful wildcard who blends in perfectly with the film's chaotic plot (and structure)

Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class successfully reinvigorated the franchise in 2011. Yet, for some reason, the following installment, 2014's X-Men: Days of Future Past brought back X-Men and X2 director Bryan Singer. That film was a critical success (even if it is inferior to First Class), so Singer was brought back for X-Men: Apocalypse, resulting in the canceled director helming his first outright poor X-Men film.

The fact that the movie explicitly pokes fun at other (infinitely superior) third installments like Return of the Jedi goes to show just how much self-awareness it lacks. The script is terrible, and the narrative overstuffed, which is how Oscar Isaac looks in his Apocalypse get-up. But Michael Fassbender is again remarkable as Magneto, and he essentially carries the film's first third.

Neither Prometheus nor Alien: Covenant really work either as installments of the Alien franchise or as films in general. This is odd considering both saw Ridley Scott return for the first time since the late '70s.

But, the two films do contain the franchise's best character outside of Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley. Michael Fassbender's David (later models, e.g. the one in Alien: Covenant, are called Walter) is an android that essentially dreams of being a real boy. But, David also has contempt for the real boys of the world, resulting in one of the most conflicted characters in recent years, and he doesn't even have a beating heart.

Michael Bay's Transformers: The Last Knight found the director's once-popular vision for the franchise coming to a grinding halt. The first three films were legitimate summer movie events, but even with an equally large scale and Dinobots, 2014's Transformers: Age of Extinction failed to match the same commercial reception. It was the feeling of been-there-seen-that setting fully in.

So, three years later, when The Last Knight came around, audiences weren't interested in seeing more of the same fights or crass jokes. And that's all that the fifth installment is, except for incomprehensible, irrelevant, embarrassing, emotionally void, and oddly well-cast. Specifically, there's Anthony Hopkins (an actor everyone forgot was in Transformers) as Sir Edmund Burton, a historian who has spent his life studying the Autobots and Decepticons. Hopkins has a substantial role, and it's all so unintelligible it ends up being an excuse for him to let loose and have fun a bit.

Steven Spielberg's Hook has its fans, but it's one of Steven Spielberg's least effective films in a long line of them. Over-produced and carrying a wonky tone, the movie should have stayed the musical it was originally intended to be.

But Hollywood legend Dustin Hoffman is great in the role of Captain Hook, diving all the way into the script and expansive sets' theatricality. Furthermore, his back-and-forth with Bob Hoskins' Smee is top-notch.

1994's S treet Fighter may be no masterpiece, but it's a lot of fun. Steven E. de Souza's movie also has the final performance by the late, great Raul Julia.

Julia famously took on the role while he was dying of cancer so that his kids would soon have a movie they could watch him in. The star had been in better movies, e.g. Kiss of the Spider Woman and The Addams Family, but there's a spark to Julia's performance that's a nice mix with Jean-Claude Van Damme's wooden line delivery. He knows what movie he's in, and he plays to the cheap seats, which is precisely what the movie needed to work.

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To call any aspect of Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin "good" is a bit of either an oversimplification or miscalculation. On one hand, no aspect of it works as either an installment of Warner Bros.' original Batman films or as a functioning film in general.

The cringe dialogue and hammy performances make the film a slog to sit through, but there are diamonds in the rough. And, oddly enough, over 25 years later, the movie holds a newfound retro appeal. And while it's apparent some stars were out of their element (Alicia Silverstone), others understood the assignment and played right into Schumacher's vision. This is particularly true of Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy. Thurman is clearly having the time of her life, and she actually manages to seem like a bigger threat to the Dynamic Duo than Arnold Schwarzenegger's pun-throwing, freeze-gun-waving Mr. Freeze.

Scooby-Doo was a fairly big deal back in 2002. Prior to release the film was talked about far more than the average project marketed to children. But not all this talk was good, as there were concerns that, for instance, the movie would encourage the smoking of marijuana. All of that was ludicrous, of course, but the film was still rife with issues.

Half the cast wasn't one of them, as both Linda Cardellini and Matthew Lillard turn in sublime performances. This is especially true of the latter, who flat-out is Shaggy. It makes sense he was brought back not just for the similarly James Gunn-written Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, but to voice the character in many animated works as well.

Like Crash, Bohemian Rhapsody was an Oscar darling that was almost immediately reappraised with a shrug at best. Admittedly, Bohemian Rhapsody is both a lot better and a lot less problematic than Paul Haggis' 2004 film.

But it's still a film that's more worthy of a single rental than a gold statue. With that being said, the gold statue Rami Malek took home for his work as rock and roll icon Freddie Mercury.

Box Office Mojo reports that Star Wars: The Force Awakens opened to a jaw-dropping $248 million before dropping a consistent 39.8% and 39.5% the next two weekends. Then, Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi opened two years later, impressing critics but substantially dividing fans. The Last Jedi grossed $620 million domestically, which is an excellent figure, but a steep drop from The Force Awakens' $936 million.

So Disney caved to some very vocal fans' vitriolic response (And not always about things that had to do with narrative) and released the bland Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalkerin December 2019 to a domestic opening of $177 million and a $515 final total. The event feel was gone, and it stands to reason most of that $515 million domestic total came from those looking to see what's next for patricidal Sith lord Kylo Ren. Adam Driver continues to give the movie and franchise his professional all, but it's as forgettable as Star Wars can get.

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As the first film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Phase Four, Black Widow is curiously small-scale. There's also no real tension in the film considering the audience had watched the title character die just two years earlier in one of the biggest movies of all time.

This makes Black Widow a passing of the torch movie more than anything else. And, in that regard, the movie's so-so script becomes secondary to the considerable presence of Florence Pugh. As Yelena Belova, Pugh immediately stamps her foot into the 13-year-old MCU as one of its best characters.

It didn't take long for Morbius to become a punchline more than anything else. In fact, this happened before the movie even hit the big screen. And its poor reputation is warranted, even more so than it would have been 20 years ago.

And that's exactly when Morbius feels like it was made, right when Daredevil and Hulk were trying and failing to kick off a franchise. In the end, the formulaic vampire Marvel film only has two assets: Popular memes and Matt Smith's scenery-chewing antagonistic performance.