Hammy Actors

[Hrairoo]

I don't know if it's my age or my over-saturation with film and tv but I have a hard time swallowing/believing big Hollywood actors when they're in dramatic roles now. I have a hard time determining if the roles and performances are genuinely bad or if my suspension of disbelief has been ruined because it's Tom Hanks or Will Smith and I've seen them in 50 movies. So, watching them disappear into a character is more difficult?

True Detective (2014)
Maleficent (2014)
Collateral Beauty (2016)
The Mummy (2017)
Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

For instance, I just recently finished the first season of True Detective. I am a fan of both Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey but this show was full of itself, in my opinion. Maybe I'm just not smart enough to buy into McConaughey's rambling nihilism in every episode. It made it hard to empathize with him. But I stuck it out through all the gratuitous displays and mumbled cynicism until finally something actually starts to happen in the last two episodes. Was it worth it? I'm divided on it. But what really stuck out to me is a scene late in episode 8 where McConaughey gets weepy and talks about this monumental experience he had. And all I could think was how pumped up and over joyed McConaughey must have been to have this opportunity to flex his acting skills. I wasn't touched or moved by his experience or his vulnerability. In fact, after all the ego-driven monologues he'd given in 7 episodes up to this point, it felt like the crowning moment of all of that, McConaughey's "epic acting."

I've been encountering this a lot, where I lose the reality of the film and accidentally become focused on the ego of the actor. Like, everyone thought Angelina Jolie was so stellar and great in Maleficent. Yet during her big dramatic scene I felt the message being pushed and Jolie getting pumped about this chance to flex how "she's still got it" with acting. I felt the same about Blanchett in Thor: Ragnarok. Not as if she had a good performance but as if she were hamming it up for an opportunity to play a villainess because she doesn't get asked to play young leading roles anymore.

Does anyone else see this? Are some roles truly hammy or is it just me getting too old?

 

[thecolorsblend]

Ages ago, I watched a movie called Road To Perdition. It starred Tom Hanks in a very non-Tom Hanks role. He's pretty much a gangster and a murderer in the movie. I had a lot of trouble getting past the fact that Mr. Nice Guy was trying to convince me that he was a killer. But that was obviously the movie's big selling point. It was a gorgeous but ultimately forgettable movie. Hanks was clearly the centerpiece of that enterprise.

Not only can I not buy him as an underworld hit man, but casting Hanks as the lead created a level of sympathy and nobility that is really not appropriate for that character. It was so far away from his usual branding.

So maybe this is similar to what you're talking about?

 

[returntosender]

And

 

[Hrairoo]

Ages ago, I watched a movie called Road To Perdition. It starred Tom Hanks in a very non-Tom Hanks role. He's pretty much a gangster and a murderer in the movie. I had a lot of trouble getting past the fact that Mr. Nice Guy was trying to convince me that he was a killer. But that was obviously the movie's big selling point. It was a gorgeous but ultimately forgettable movie. Hanks was clearly the centerpiece of that enterprise.

Not only can I not buy him as an underworld hit man, but casting Hanks as the lead created a level of sympathy and nobility that is really not appropriate for that character. It was so far away from his usual branding.

So maybe this is similar to what you're talking about?

Sort of. It's more that my expectations for Tom Hanks as a nice guy have been so solidified, that on occasion, when I see him in current dramatic films playing a nice guy, it doesn't register as a character. If he cries in a role, it's Tom Hanks "trying to earn that Oscar," in my mind.

And I'm not saying that is true for every movie he's in. Some stories and movies are able to take me away. It's just particular movies and a particular style of acting where I feel very conscious of the art. And since these actors and actresses are so high profile, it feels like they grab these juicy roles where they can either play to their strengths or do something outstanding to catch the audience off guard. Or sometimes, you can feel them exerting their star power on the story and production.