Bad movies make up most of the cinematic landscape these days. That’s because there are so many ways a film can go wrong. Today we’re going to take a break from beating up on horrible movies and instead focus on the bright spots that sometimes get overshadowed by the darkness surrounding them. Let’s give a round of applause to our top 10 good performances in bad movies.

10. Stanley Tucci – The Lovely Bones

Peter Jackon’s The Lovely Bones is an incredibly lopsided movie that, for some reason, cast Mark Wahlberg as a grieving father. Fortunately we have Stanley Tucci in the role of the disgusting child abductor, George Harvey. Tucci’s greasy comb-over and sniveling portrayal of Harvey is enough to make your skin crawl. You actually feel something for his character (hate), which is far more than you can say about anyone else in this film. Even the usually fantastic Saoirse Ronan comes off cold (teehee). Tucci is the only one taking advantage of what could have been a decent screenplay. A complete waste of time for everyone involved.

9. Cate Blanchett – Elizabeth: The Golden Age

The 1998 film Elizabeth helped make Cate Blanchett a star, and rightfully so, because she’s amazing. The film was an entertaining, well made, if not entirely historically accurate look at the early life of Queen Elizabeth I that featured a bloody ending montage lifted straight out of The Godfather. And as good as Elizabeth was, I don’t think anyone waked out of the theater saying, “That needs a sequel!” Apparently the filmmakers thought the same thing, because it took them 9 years to release the dreadful sequel Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Everything the first film got right, The Golden Age gets wrong; it features a flat, directionless script and a positively bland performance by Clive Owen as Sir Walter Raleigh. Yet at the heart of all this is Blanchett, who I honestly don’t think is even capable of a bad performance. She exudes regality and power, even as the film around her is total rubbish.

8. Tom Cruise – War of the Worlds

The idea of Spielberg adapting my favorite H.G. Wells story had me so pumped to see this film. Then I heard it would be set in modern times, and would star Tom Cruise… and my enthusiasm faded. The film is a hatchet job of a story that doesn’t need to be hatcheted, and get’s treated like a CGI playground for Spielberg to learn how to use emerging technologies. But none of that stops Tom Cruise from delivering an insanely good performance as terrible weekend dad forced to actually take care of his kids during an alien invasion. This film has a ton of problems, but none of them involve Cruise’s acting.

7. Julie Delpy – Killing Zoe

I don’t care that Tarantino helped produce this movie, or that it’s considered a cult classic for some Gen-X film lovers, the movie is simply bad. Any film with Eric Stoltz as your lead man is going to be a bad time. He is an adequate actor, but he is not at all capable of carrying an entire film, especially a heist film. Thankfully, we have Julie Delpy to help carry the load. I’m not sure if you would call this Delpy’s break out role, but it is the first time I ever remember seeing her. She plays the titular Zoe, a bank worker and part time prostitute who gets mixed up in some craziness. If you decide to check out this performance, try not to lose your lunch when Stoltz shows his flabby ginger stomach.

6. Alan Rickman – Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

I’m convinced Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was really just an excuse to sell CDs of the soundtrack featuring Bryan Adams’ smash hit “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You.” They just needed b-roll footage to pump into the music video in between shots of Bryan Adams strutting through the forest, staring pensively up at the canopy. Still, Prince of Thieves exists and so here we are! Let’s ignore the awfulness of Kevin Costner’s sleepwalking through the role of Robin Hood and focus our attention on Alan Rickman’s hilariously evil portrayal of the Sheriff of Nottingham. He’s hissing at the camera, he’s staring down his nose at everybody. He’s just a whole lot of fun to watch and really the only reason anyone should stick it out to until the end credits. Observe the clip above to see an actual human being cartoonishly pry open a woman’s legs!

5. Kurt Russell – Death Proof

I was highly anticipating Grindhouse, especially Quentin Tarantino’s segment Death Proof, so it was with a heavy heart I sat in the theater watching the film, despising almost every second of it. Death Proof is a rare misfire for Tarantino, but one thing that works is Kurt Russell’s sleazy performance as Stuntman Mike. Playing a stuntman who gets sexual gratification from killing women with his car, Russell oozes both charisma and unseemliness. It’s a shame such a fun character and such a good performance is wasted in this film.

4. Sigourney Weaver – Alien: Resurrection

Nobody who saw Alien: Resurrection back in 1997 thought it was a good movie. Hell, most people didn’t even want to revisit the franchise after Alien 3 (which I maintain is a good movie). Unfortunately they went ahead and made the movie anyway. Some words you could use to describe Alien: Resurrection are as follows: stupid, boring, uninspired, cash grab. There are many others but my mother reads this site. The good news is that Sigourney Weaver agreed to take part in this turd and show everyone she shared the set with what to do when life hands you a poor screenplay. She hams it up and relishes in the camp that would otherwise be utterly embarrassing to be associated with. Costar and future jewel thief Winona Ryder should have been taking notes.

3. Tim Roth – Planet of the Apes

The 2001 Planet of the Apes signaled the beginning of the end of my enthusiasm for Tim Burton movies. It was a cluttered mess from beginning to end, with Mark Wahlberg acting bored to be on a PLANET FULL OF TALKING APES, thank you very much. The film had some things going for it though: the make-up work by Rick Baker was fantastic, and the performance of Tim Roth stole the show. Roth plays the villainous General Thade, and while some could consider the performance a bit over-the-top, I think Roth hits all the right notes in playing a psychotic talking Chimpanzee who is also an army general.

2. Philip Seymour Hoffman – Charlie Wilson’s War

This movie is a serious dud. You’d think a Sorkin script plus Tom Hanks as your leading man would be an instant classic, you’d also be dead wrong. The picked probably the most boring of subjects (The Soviet/Afghanistan conflict of the 80’s) and then told it in the most boring of ways. It also doesn’t help that Julia Roberts is clomping around with her horrible accent for half the film. All that said. Philip Seymour Hoffman delivers some scenes that you simply can’t miss. I actually suggest only watching his scenes in this film, because they are all borderline genius comedic performances. Particularly the scene where he smashes his boss’s (John Slattery) office window with a wrench.

1. Raul Julia – Street Fighter

Holy shit. Much has been written about the awfulness of Street Fighter but you really have to have perspective when you’re writing solely about Raul Julia’s performance as main antagonist M. Bison. Prior to filming Street Fighter, Julia had to undergo stomach surgery to remove what was rumored to be stomach cancer. Shortly thereafter he contracted food poisoning and recovered, however he lost a significant amount of weight and his body was left weakened. Immediately following that ordeal he flew out to Australia to film Street Fighter. And then he died. That’s right, Raul Julia died of acute Streetfighteritis. This movie fucking killed him. After giving his all as the deliciously evil, ham-fisted M. Bison, he was hadoukened right into a coffin. Julia’s performance is quite literally the only good thing about Street Fighter but that didn’t stop audiences from stampeding to the theaters and then slinking back out into the parking lot after being tiger uppercutted for 102 minutes by the cesspool that surrounded Raul Julia. Long live Bison!

This list was compiled by the CutPrintFilm staff.

Download