What are some terrible acting performances that are more so the fault of the direction or the script than of the actors themselves?

What are some terrible acting performances that are more so the fault of the direction or the script than of the actors themselves?

I dunno, can Natalie Portman act?

Well, if her Oscar winning performance in “Black Swan” was any indication, then yes. She’s ah-mazing.

Can Ewan McGregor act?

Well, here he is going all in on “Fargo” (he’s the one on the right, silly) for which he was lavished with praise including an Emmy nom and a Golden Globe win. Yes, the dude is the real deal.

Can Liam Neeson act?

Don’t make me jump through this computer like Tron and slap your momma! Of COURSE he can act!! He almost got an Oscar for playing Oscar! The man trained Batman and the A-Team and is both Aslan and Zeus! He’s brilliant!

Okay, agreed! So then how do you explain this film…

Yes, thaaaaat’s right “Phantom Menace” — you thought we forgot about picking on you because we’ve been preoccupied with re-focusing our fan-hate since “The Last Jedi” was pooped out into 4232 theaters in 2017. But we’re back.

From the second our two Jedi burst forth onto the screen in this scene…

With a performance that can only be lauded as “stiff” and “remarkably void of feeling” and “bad” it’s an accurate omen for the rest of the film. How does this happen?! How does one take Mathilde from “The Professional” and frikkin Aslan and turn them into vacuous puppets?

Well for that you need the superpowerful “I can do whatever I want and you’ll like it” megalomania of this galactic Emperor….

And here’s how to cripple you actors performance.

1. Give them a script you wrote yourself with such classic and memorable lines as:

Qui-Gon: There’s always a bigger fish.

or sexy banter like…

Young Annie: Are you an angel?

Padme: What?

or regular banter like…

QuiGon: I’ve got a baaaad feeling about this.

Obi wan: I don’t feel anythin’

Sigh. Neither do we Obiwan. Neither. Do. We.

2. Take away every physical reference for the actor in the space in which they’re acting so they have zero stimuli to actually, you know, ACT with.

Like so….

George: Okay Padme there’s an Opee Sea killer from Naboo coming after you so REACT NOW!

Padme: What?

Okay, George, we get it, you wanted to do an entirely animated film but those pesky live action actors kept getting in your way! Glad you finally got your way with “Clone Wars: The Animated Series”.

3. Make it so you only answer to yourself creatively. Tell that pesky Spielberg to “buzz off” with his dumb ideas to “fix” your film or “make it more accessible to audiences” or “for God’s sake George, make it less Jar-jar-y”….

4. Say you can “fix it in post” but then don’t actually fix it in post, just add more CGI doodads and baubles all over the screen to try to distract what you assume is an audience of toddlers.

Lucas: I did what you told me to do and added in more Jar Jar.

Spielberg: What?

5. And then, sadly, rake in your billion dollars at the world wide box office so you never have to change never ever because your way obviously works. A billion dollars does not lie!!

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