What the Hell Are They Doing in This?!

So a few weeks ago I saw a movie by Crank writers and directors Neveldine/Taylor called Gamer. Despite Gerard Butler, Terry Crews acting like a complete nutbar, and a fairly interesting premise involving using living people in "Sims" and "Halo" type games, this movie amounts to little more than an hour and a half of bullshit. With incomprehensible action, zero likable characters, and dialogue so bad it's like Stephanie Meyer wrote it, it's pretty much a waste of time for everyone involved. Especially for Michael C. Hall, Dexter himself, who plays the villain of the film with so much over-the-top enthusiasm, leaving nothing but thoroughly chewed scenery in his wake. As I sat there watching Hall hold down every scene he was in and have his way with it, I thought about his excellent roles in both "Six Feet Under" and "Dexter" and couldn't help but wonder; What the the hell is he doing in this?

This got me thinking about a time honored cinematic tradition that's really become a phenomenon since the 1980's; great actors appearing in really shitty movies and taking camp to a whole new level while still being entertaining as all get out. I like to call it Raul Julia syndrome. It's one of those things that make terrible movies all the more entertaining, like seeing Dennis Hopper play King Koopah in Super Mario Bros., Joseph Gordon Levitt play Cobra Commander in G.I. Joe, or as the name I've given this phenomenon suggests, Raul Julia in most of his filmography, but especially his last major role as General M. Bison in Street Fighter, a role that doesn't quite save the film, but makes it about a thousand times more watchable. So I thought this would be a good opportunity to discuss this time honored tradition, and the best examples of it. So, here it is, my top five "What the Hell are They Doing in This?!" list.

5. Sir Michael Cain in Jaws IV: The Revenge

Sure, the Jaws franchise took a staggering nose dive to awful after the untouchable first film, with the fourth and final film truly being rock bottom. I shit you not, the movie is all about a family of sharks with a grudge against a family of humans, and even features a shot with a great white shark leaping out of the water and ROARING LIKE A LION before biting a guys arm off. That said, Cain still manages to be both charming and hilarious in the movie, and you can't help but love the scenes he's in. You also have to respect that whenever an interviewer brings this film up, he responds that he's never seen it, but has seen the house it paid for.

4. Louis Jourdan in The Return of Swamp Thing

Dick Durock is cool and everything, but there is only one man that elevates this sequel to Wes Craven's lackluster adaption of the awesome DC comics hero, Swamp Thing, and that man is Louis Jourdan playing Anton Arcane, the arch nemesis of our photosynthetic hero. Jourdan is just so cool, and classy, and French that his presence in these proceedings is just plain hard to understand, let alone why he came back for this sequel. But he makes the absolute best of it, playing his role with extra cheese and loving it. He also gives the best delivery of one of the best lines I've ever heard in my 21 years.

3. Frank Langella in Masters of the Universe

There's no doubt that Masters of the Universe is a god awful movie that manages to take the He-Man character and turn him into even more of a walking gay-joke than he already was. The acting, directing, special effects, everything about this movie sucks. Except, of course, the character of Skeletor, master of snake mountain, because he is played by the always classy Frank Langella, who is obviously having so much fun with the role that he can barely contain himself. He also manages to pull off one of the best villains from a comic or cartoon adaption ever.

2. Raul Julia in Street Fighter

I know I've already mentioned this one, and he's even inspired the name of the phenomenon, but this movie is just so damn bad and he's just so damn awesome in it, that it couldn't go without a ranking on the list. Everything about this movie is a misstep, from the ever-changing tone from cartoonish to painfully serious, to the casting of a famous Belgian gymnast as a bad-ass American soldier. The only thing this movie got right was casting Julia, who acts nothing like the character from the game but, honestly, if the character in the game was more like this, I would've been a bigger fan...Of course!

1. Orson Welles in Transformers: The Movie

I'm going to come out and say that this animated movie from 1986 is actually a huge guilty pleasure for me, I love to watch and consider it better than any 3 hour, CG-laden Micahel Bay dick measuring festival. That being said, this is not a good movie, it's actually quite bad, with even the awesome parts, like the final battle between Optimus Prime and Megatron, dilluted by nerve-grating eighties soundtrack additions. So it's all the more bizarre that this fucked up and strange animated movie is THE LAST PERFORMANCE OF ORSON WELLES. That's right, Welles lends his rather distinctive voice to the planet-sized transformer god, Unicron. Nuff said.

So that's my list, I know that there are plenty of reasons for an actor to take a role in a film that is really beneath them. Whether it be the desire to break into television from film, or maybe they liked a script that ended up butchered during production, or just needed the paycheck. I say thank the movie god for that, because it has given us some damn fine entertainment.