Bad movies that still have impressive casts

Shawn Levy directed the super-successful “Deadpool & Wolverine,” so now we can consider this punching up. Levy is not a good director, he chooses questionable projects, and “This is Where I Leave You” is one of the worst movies of the 2010s. The dramedy is profoundly, achingly unfunny, and the dramatic moments land with a thud. Now, Levy didn’t write the screenplay, but the atrocious performances delivered left and right from an impressive cast lands at his feet. Jane Fonda, Adam Driver, Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, we literally could go on. Not a good performance in the bunch.

Will Smith is now an Oscar winner, and well before “Suicide Squad” he was a movie star. Margot Robbie was in the mix as Harley Quinn. Viola Davis, who absolutely rules, was even around. And yet, “Suicide Squad” is a pool of mediocrity. Jared Leto, also an Oscar winner, was allowed to roam free in the worst possible ways. Things went so poorly years later the whole “Suicide Squad” thing was rebooted by James Gunn. Robbie (and others) even returned for that one, perhaps to waste the taste of the first version out of their mouths.

“Cats” is based on a terrible Broadway play. There was never a chance the movie adaptation would be good. Even with the cast in question, including Idris Elba and Oscar winners Jennifer Hudson and Judi Dench, we always figured “Cats” would turn out poor. But, like, run-of-the-mill poor. Then, we saw the trailer. Then, the movie. “Cats” proved to be a waking nightmare visually, but also a fascinating cultural curio. It’s now canonized in the “So Bad, It’s Good” hall of fame.

David O. Russell often gets great casts. Even though he has a reputation for being immensely difficult to deal with, big names have flocked to his films. Some of his movies are good, and the ones that don’t work fully usually end up being decent. “Amsterdam” could even hit that level. Russell reunited with Christian Bale and Robert De Niro while bringing in the likes of Margot Robbie and John David Washington. There’s plenty of potential in “Amsterdam,” but it never comes together.

Immediately, “Crash” winning Best Picture at the Oscars yielded a ton of incredulity. This was before the rise of social media, but the backlash was still palpable. Nowadays, it’s considered one of the worst movies to win Best Picture. The heavy-handed ensemble piece is pretty packed, from Sandra Bullock to Don Cheadle to a young Michael Pena. At least in an ensemble film everybody gets to shoulder the load of the blame.

We didn’t expect much from an ensemble romantic comedy from director Garry Marshall. With the cast of “Valentine’s Day,” though, there was some intrigue. Maybe it would be fine, you know? Instead, it turned out to be slapdash and unfunny, though it was successful enough at the box office to earn a couple of quasi-sequels. The fact Marshall could put casts like this together surely helped as well. Anne Hathaway, Bradley Cooper, Jamie Foxx, and not one but two Robertses (Julia and Emma) are in the mix. Oh, and Hector Elizondo, of course.

“The Big Short” was the turning point for Adam McKay. He went from a director of silly, successful comedies to a guy with political messages to deliver. “The Big Short” did it fine, but ever since, his movies have gotten more polemic, and also his director instincts have just gotten way worse. “Don’t Look Up” is edited all to hell, and it also fails to be funny in any real capacity. While the movie has Leonard DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, and even Meryl Streep, it’s entirely ineffective.

No, not the Daniel Craig movie. As you can tell by the year, this “Casino Royale” predates Craig’s first foray as Bond by decades. A different producer had the rights to Ian Fleming’s first book, but “Casino Royale” is not a straightforward Bond movie, but instead an anything-goes parody. Peter Sellers and David Niven, the “Pink Panther” team, are in it. So is a young Woody Allen. Hell, Orson Welles is in the movie! As to the quality, well, Roger Ebert called it “possibly the most indulgent film ever made” and that sums it up pretty well.

Nora Ephron was pretty integral to the rom-com, writing “When Harry Met Sally…,” “Sleepless in Seattle,” and “You’ve Got Mail,” while also directing the latter two. “Bewitched” could have been a fun riff on the famed 1960s sitcom. Instead, it’s a weird meta-movie about an attempt to remake “Bewitched,” but they unknowingly cast a real witch. Perhaps the presence of Michael Caine, no stranger to taking a paycheck gig, should have clued us in. Then again, Will Ferrell and Nicole Kidman are also in it, as are some beloved comedic performances such as Stephen Colbert, Amy Sedaris, and Steve Carell.

Daniel Day-Lewis managed to stack up Oscar nods, and that was even while being picky about roles. We might call “Nine” his only misstep. He didn’t seem like the right choice for the musical based on “8 1/2.” There are four other Oscar winners in the mix, including the aforementioned Kidman and Dench. Even fans of musicals largely stayed away from “Nine,” and even Day-Lewis couldn’t get good press clippings out of this one.

Famously, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino finally shared the screen in 1995’s “Heat.” That movie is a bit overrated in our books, but it’s good, and it brought two of the biggest actors in the world together in one place. In 2008, after years of questionable choices, Pacino and De Niro came together again. “Righteous Kill” is not “Heat.” It’s a generic crime movie that is only notable because De Niro and Pacino are in it.

A decade after “Get Shorty,” a successful Elmore Leonard adaptation, we got a sequel in “Be Cool.” This film is based on Leonard’s sequel book of the same name. However, instead of being adapted by Scott Frank and directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, it was adapted by Peter Steinfeld and directed by F. Gary Gray. Even though “Be Cool” brought back John Travolta and Danny DeVito while adding Uma Thurman and Vince Vaughn, among others, the movie was a critical failure and barely financially viable.

George Clooney was already a movie star, and then he directed two good films in “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” and “Good Night, and Good Luck.” Then…he just got to keep directing movies. “The Tender Bar” was fine, but otherwise Clooney keeps swinging and missing. “The Ides of March” had the trappings of a strong political thriller. The cast had Clooney in it, of course, but also Ryan Gosling and the dynamic character actor duo of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti. Also, at the time, the movie got good reviews. To which we say: Why? Maybe people were caught up in the moment? Maybe they were happy it wasn’t “Leatherheads.” “The Ides of March” is not a good political thriller. It’s a poor one.

With all due respect to David Thewlis and Ron Perlman, there is a duo in “The Island of Dr. Moreau” we are focused on. That would be Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer. Casting those two together was hubris at best, self-destructive behavior at worst. Brando and Kilmer were both known for being immensely difficult to work with, and they were together in the same film, one being shot in a remote location at that. “Dr. Moreau” is one of the most infamous filming stories on this side of “Apocalypse Now.” Original director Richard Stanley was fired early on and replaced by steady hand John Frankenheimer. Stanley would later sneak onto set as an extra. Oh, and in the end the movie turned out to be bananas and terrible.

The disaster film had a moment there. Star-packed casts would deal with capsized ships or earthquakes or towering infernos. Of course, most of these movies weren’t Roger Corman productions. “Avalanche” was. He may have gotten Rock Hudson and Mia Farrow to star, and got notable character actors Robert Forster and Jeanette Nolan to round out the cast, but that’s pretty much where all the budget went. “Avalanche” would end up on “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” which says it all.

For years, even with all his success, Steven Spielberg was tarred with the brush of, “He can’t do comedy.” The reason for that? “1941.” The absurdist war comedy features the likes of Dan Akroyd, John Belushi, Christopher Lee, Robert Stack, and, making his film debut, Mickey Rourke. Some have tried to reclaim “1941” as actually good, or as a cult classic. However, while it isn’t a disaster, it also is not good by any stretch of the imagination.

You ever wanted to say to a movie, “Okay, I get it!?” We had that when watching “The Counselor.” Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men” was adapted into an acclaimed film, but this time McCarthy was writing a screenplay. Also, Ridley Scott served as the director. The problem is that the thing is so heavy-handedly dark and nihilistic. It’s just miserable and not as clever as it thinks. Yeah, bad stuff happens. Your point being? Even Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, and Spanish power couple Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz couldn’t save “The Counselor” from being a slog.

Otto Preminger was an acclaimed director of drama. He helped break the Hollywood Production Code. He was not the guy to direct a satirical counterculture film. “Skidoo” is a weird LSD comedy that feels completely out of step with everything. Three different “Batman” villains appear in the movie. So do Jackie Gleason, Frankie Avalon, and Groucho Marx. If that sounds like a fiasco, you’re right.

The debate over the second-worst MCU movie is well-contested, but there is general consensus on the worst MCU film. That would be “Eternals.” Sometimes, Marvel movies turn out silly. “Eternals” is inert. There’s nothing fun about it. Chloe Zhao, an Oscar winner, proved a poor pairing with the MCU. The Eternals group was filled with notable actors, including Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie. Even with the impressive cast, we will never see the Eternals again.

Well, it seems like the “80 for Brady” ladies had fun. Good for them. The trailer indicated the movie about a quarter of older gals looking to make it to the Super Bowl to see Tom Brady play would be painfully unfunny. It is, and then some. The only thing keeping “80 for Brady” from being total drek is that the leads are Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Rita Moreno, and Sally Field. That’s too much talent, even when misused, to spell abject failure.