Bad chemistry, missing Malificent: The most grating movie pairings of 2019
Lacklustre chemistry, sappy cliches and a movie’s namesake that was barely sighted — these actors should never have been paired together. These are 10 on-screen duos that should never have made it to the big screen in 2019.
Leigh Paatsch
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CHRIS HEMSWORTH AND TESSA THOMPSON, MEN IN BLACK: INTERNATIONAL
The end result for Men in Black: International is in no way a reinvigoration of a series that dates all the way back to 1997.
It is more a reminder of why the whole MiB thing had fallen out of favour in the first place: because the formula was run and done over 20 years ago.
Thompson and Hemsworth do have screen chemistry (as we know from Thor: Ragnarok) but they do not look like they’re having much fun in Men in Black: International.
Chances are, neither will you.
MIRANDA TAPSELL AND GWILYM LEE, TOP END WEDDING
Australian-made Top End Wedding is packaged as an attractive present.
The film might have got away with some of this needlessly inane material had ambitious Adelaide lawyer and former Tiwi Islander Lauren (Miranda Tapsell) and her slow-witted British boyfriend Ned (Gwilym Lee) clicked as a couple worth caring about.
But with a stinker of a script, a big fat chunk of sitcom ham and a dithering dipstick for a love interest, this gift is one you’ll want to give away.
BRUCE WILLS AND SAMUEL L. JACKSON, GLASS
This ploddingly pointless thriller is a direct sequel to not one, but two movies directed by the ever-divisive filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan.
Most of Glass is chewed up inside an impregnable asylum where Unbreakable’s duelling duo, semi-superhero David Dunn (Bruce Willis) and conniving comic-book wacko Mr Glass (Samuel L. Jackson), have been reunited against their will.
They are soon joined by Split’s multi-personality madman Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), whose vast collection of anarchic alter egos are now known as “The Horde”.
A mysterious forensic psychiatrist (Sarah Paulson) submits her shackled charges to patience-shredding sessions of group therapy that stop the movie stone-dead repeatedly. While several audacious loop-de-loop twists arrive in the final act, it is a case of too much, too late.
REBEL WILSON AND ANNE HATHAWAY, THE HUSTLE
The laughter-to-lameness ratio at work in The Hustle runs at about 40:60, with Rebel Wilson scoring most of the points on offer through sheer, self-humiliating repetition.
Conversely, Anne Hathaway is never once at ease with her character, and lacks the comic timing required to work up a winning double-act with Wilson.
In fact, this could be the worst thing Hathaway has ever done in her relatively consistent career to date.
ANGELINA JOLIE AND ELLE FANNING, MALEFICENT: MISTRESS OF EVIL
In 2014, Maleficent and its unusual take on the Sleeping Beauty legend gave Angelina Jolie one of the biggest hits of her career.
But the star of the show goes AWOL for massive chunks of the sequel, leaving dreary Princess Aurora (Elle Fanning) to try and pick up the slack.
And the poor love just isn’t up to it, making this second lap of the Maleficent fairytale universe feel absolutely contractual.
DAMON HERRIMAN AND MIA WASIKOWSKA, JUDY & PUNCH
Damon Herriman and Mia Wasikowska play the title roles in this esoteric hybrid, a pair of married puppeteers plying their trade in a grotty British coastal village in the mid-17th century.
The leads give their all to their characters, but the movie’s scattershot ambitions – it severely miscalculates its chances as a sophisticated commentary on modern gender politics – do not give them quite enough to work with.
Both Wasikowska and Herriman are world-class actors, and it becomes something of an ongoing frustration with Judy & Punch that the film’s niche inclinations do not allow them to unleash their full arsenal of performance firepower.
EMILIA CLARKE AND HENRY GOLDING, LAST CHRISTMAS
The arrival of Last Christmas was great news for anyone who wished there were more happy-sad British rom-coms about lovelorn Londoners riding emotional roller-coasters all the way through December.
And you would think that Little Miss Do-It-Wrong, Kate (Emilia Clarke), finding her elusive Mister Right, Tom (Henry Golding), would be where the story ends.
However, it is really just the start of a long, clanking chain of pithy punchlines, poignant revelations and Christmas cliches that shall haul many willing viewers to a place of misty eyes and goofy smiles.
ANY TWO CAST MEMBERS, X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX
Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones) tanks it turgidly in the foreground as a young Jean Grey in the 1990s.
Those doing the same in the background include Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender.
This badly broken twelfth instalment was supposed to be a celebratory sayonara for the cabal of characters originally brought in to inject some younger blood into the franchise (a phase that began with 2011’s X-Men: First Class).
Instead, what is dumped on screen is one big pile of filler, dispersed with grim professionalism by actors with contracts to complete, cheques to cash and consciences to repair.
WILL SMITH AND WILL SMITH, GEMINI MAN
The film rarely breaks out of a reluctant jog as we wait for a 51-year-old Will Smith to get in a feeble fight to the death with a 25-year-old Will Smith.
The exchanges of fists and firearms take place in various exotic locales for no apparent reason, and are presented in a new high-res 3-D format that make many key moments of this expensive production look like behind-the-scenes footage filmed on a fancy phone.
It is all so deathly dull, and to be frank, it did not have to be.
TERESA PALMER AND SAM NEILL, RIDE LIKE A GIRL
The Australian public can’t resist an underdog yarn. But this is not to say Ride Like a Girl is a good movie.
Far from it. The quality fluctuates throughout from quaintly endearing to faintly awful.
Teresa Palmer as Michelle Payne never really convinces as a jockey, but does excel when it comes to conveying her character’s tough-as-teak personal ethos.
And Sam Neill cops the worst of some wonky, clichéd scripting as Paddy Payne, Michelle’s hard-nosed horse-trainer dad, and head of a rough’n’tumble household that lives and breathes thoroughbred racing.