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Top 20 Worst Casting Decisions Ever

Movie Feature

Ali

6th June 2008

15. TED DANSON is... AN ARMY SERGEANT!
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998)
Ted Danson as an Army Sergeant in Saving Private Ryan
WELCOME TO THE WAR WHERE everybody knows your name. Steven Spielberg did a fine job transporting us back to the relentlessly grim Normandy Landing of World War II... that is until Tom Hanks and his platoon stumble upon Cheers barman Sam Malone in the midst of battle. Okay, so it's just Ted Danson, but actor and character are pretty much indistinguishable. Where's Woody and Norm? Is Frasier on the frontline? Should you really be thinking about a TV comedy set in a bar during a gritty war drama? Therein lies the root of the problem: hiring an actor known for a comedic role in a deadly serious part. Because no one likes laughing at war.


14. COLIN FARRELL is... A CONQUEROR!
ALEXANDER (2004)
Colin Farrell as Alexander The Great in Alexander
IT'S FAIR TO SAY YOU don't get many Alexander the Greats these days, so granted - it's a tough call to cast such a mighty warrior. But all Oliver Stone had to do was heed the tell-tale signs to avoid his second appearance on this list. Colin Farrell is as Irish as they come; a dark-haired, foul-mouthed, booze-hound bad boy who looks like he acts through the fog of a painful hangover at all times. Alexander the Great, on the other hand, was blonde, super-gay, bloodthirsty and Macedonian (which, for the geographical dunces among you, is nowhere near the Emerald Isle). The movie's subsequent flop doesn't seem quite so mysterious now, does it?


13. KATE BOSWORTH is... LOIS LANE!
SUPERMAN RETURNS (2006)
Kate Bosworth is Lois Lane in Superman Returns
WHEN TASKED WITH RE-CASTING THE Superman reboot, Bryan Singer was spot on in casting newcomer Brandon Routh as Superman. Strange then, that he'd drop such a clanger by hiring Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane. Our issues are purely chronological. Original Lois Margot Kidder was aged 32 when Superman II was made. With Superman Returns set five years after the events of that movie, it made no sense to hire a 23 year-old (and very blonde) Kate Bosworth for the role. The result saw a character who looked less like a hardened, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and more like a little girl playing dress-up in her mother's clothes. You can practically see the wig glue.


12. ORLANDO BLOOM is... A CRUSADER!
KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (2005)
Orlando Bloom is Balian in Kingdom Of Heaven
THERE ARE FEW ACTORS WHO look as if they could command an army. Russell Crowe in Gladiator: definitely. Mel Gibson in Braveheart: sure, why not. But Legolas? Um... This is the Crusades, people - the bloodiest, most violent holy war in history! And we're expecting to believe that Orlando Bloom - best known for playing a ladylike Elf, remember - is a warrior to be feared? Pass. Orlando Bloom is an actor who even made being a pirate look effeminate. From the weed of Troy, to the loser of Elizabethtown, nothing on Bloom's resume exactly screams "Hire me! I win wars!" Ridley Scott might as well have cast Napoleon Dynamite.


11. VINCE VAUGHN is... NORMAN BATES!
PSYCHO (1998)
Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates in Psycho
FUNNYMAN VINCE VAUGHN'S APPOINTMENT AS head nutter Norman Bates is not the only thing wrong with Gus Van Sant's pointless '90s Hitchcock retread - it's a movie built on a foundation of bad ideas. But Vaughn's shy-guy psycho shtick is acres away from the persona he presented in Swingers two years previously; he went from money to mummy in the blink of an eye. Pale-faced and sweating, Vaughn struggles to play it straight; a comedian trapped in an utterly humourless movie, the odd nervous giggle the closest he gets to laughter. Well, apart from the big reveal, which, coming 38 years after the original, is shockingly bad, rather than just shocking.

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