3. Nicolas Cage as Ghost Rider
Awwww, Nick. You adorable lunatic you. Yeah, the guy who once shouted the alphabet from A to Z and ran down the street screaming “I’m a vampire! I’m a vampire! I’m a vampire! I’m a vampire!” seems like the PERFECT guy to play Johnny Blaze, right? Wrong. I like Nicolas Cage, in all his wacky glory, but they couldn’t have picked a worse actor. Johnny Blaze is a young, blonde, serious guy. Nicolas Cage is… not. Oddly enough he did try to be serious and reserved in the first Ghost Rider film, but that just made him come across as weird. Okay, he was already weird. It made him a different kind of weird. Mind you, in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance he went back to being his usual brand of weird so I guess it evens out. Still, the point is that both performances were wrong in their own way. Guess Nick will have to stick to stealing John Travolta‘s face and screaming “Not the bees!”. God bless you, you insane Looney Tune of a man!
2. Topher Grace as Venom
Insert That 70’s Show joke… and let’s move on. Now, much like the Cage man and the Hackman, I like this actor. I think he can be funny, I think he can give a good performance. Plus in all honesty, I don’t think he really did a bad job in Spider-Man 3. Well… he was okay at least. The problem was that he was completely wrong for the part. Simple as. Again, it didn’t help that the writers source material was clearly a babbling 13-year-old’s second-hand summary of Venom’s history. Eddie Brock is supposed to be an imposing, muscular guy. Topher Grace is short and weedy. Eddie Brock is supposed to be a good guy driven to do bad after his life falls apart and he makes one mistake. In this film he was a jerk to begin with who deserved everything he got. Venom is, at heart, an anti-hero. He’s a villain, yeah. One of Spidey’s most vicious at that. But he doesn’t want to hurt innocent people. He mostly just wants to hurt Peter Parker. Why? Because Brock blames him for all his misfortunes and the symbiote was rejected by him. He’s almost a tragic figure. That aspect of him, in fact nearly every aspect of the character that made him interesting, is absent from the film. He’s just another generic bad guy. If Venom had been the focus of the film then maybe we might have seen this kind of thing. But sadly, it was not to be. And despite a valiant effort, there was nothing Topher Grace could do to save the role. A moment of silence please, for a good character gone wrong.
1. Seth Rogen as The Green Hornet
God damnit! Why do actors I like keep appearing on this list? Yeah, I like Seth Rogen as an actor. I’m not a fan of everything he does, but once in a while he does a good job. This is not one of those times. And once again, the character is poorly written. In fact, the whole film was poorly written. They made a mockery of the Green Hornet! How dare they! The Green Hornet was a serious superhero. Although the 60’s television series crossed over with Batman from time to time, there was no camp to be found here. It took itself and those that watched it, seriously. It was NOT a comedy. Yet for some reason Rogen reimagined the character as a doucebag slacker. Why Seth? Why? This wasn’t just poor writing. This was insulting to the character. But you couldn’t stop there, could you Rogen? Oh no. You cast yourself as Britt Reid a.k.a. The Green Hornet and ruined him even further! A POX ON YOU! A POX I SAY! YOU MADE HIM AN UNLIKABLE, UNINTELLIGENT GIT AND WHEN THE REVOLUTION COMES YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY! AAAAHHHHH!!!
So yeah, not a fan of him in this film.
But what do YOU think of these choices? Is it a captivating compendium of creative casting or… is it not? Alliteration is hard. Anyway, sound off in the comments or send us your thoughts on Twitter! In the meantime, I’m going to start working on the first speech I’ll make as ruler of the world. “Dear citizens of Earth or, as it shall now be known, Scott World…”
