As an aspiring screenwriter, I know how tough it is to get a character working properly. If even a minor detail doesn’t reconcile with another, the character feels wrong and you’re forced to go right back to the start and re-examine them again. It’s hard, and anyone who can do it and do it well has my upmost respect.
But unfortunately, if you get that character wrong, if you let him or her slip through the cracks before they’re fully dimensional, fully rounded and fully complete, then the audience will pick up on it, and before you know it, they’ll be featuring in articles like this one.
You’d think that there was a certain standard pre-requisite for having a film made, like a meter that you have to fill to certain degree to get a green light, but there really isn’t. It’s far from an exact science and even experienced movie financiers can’t be considered oracles on what will succeed and what will fail.
And for that reason, inferior, incomplete and otherwise unintentionally annoying characters slip through the cracks on a daily basis. Sometimes they’re in a minor role so essentially they may remain hidden from view, sometimes they’re the protagonist, and their irritating presence is all but forced down our throat.
Here are ten of those characters that we were supposed to get behind, but for one reason or another were annoying as hell.
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8 Comments
This article will do nothing for Jake Lloyd’s self-esteem.
I’d add Hathaway’s catwoman as well. Also, Modine.
I don’t know if we’re supposed to like him or not, but aside from Jar Jar, the first person that always comes to mind in this category is Chris Tucker’s character in The Fifth Element.
Ruby Rhod
I personally liked Hannibal King. I mean, I am not a Blade comics fan by any means (I like it, I am just not HUGE into comics). However, I find Ryan Reynolds to be interesting, and his action scenes were well done (I mean, he took the full front of Triple H’s wrestling moves). And I personally think that role is the reason he was picked to play Deadpool (which you have to admit is near perfect casting, now if they can just get that movie out of development hell.) I will say the character in Blade Trinity was NOTHING like Hannibal King in the comics. That much I do know.
Dakota Fanning’s character & her brother ‘Robbie’ in Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, wrecked my head.
Fun list. Great call on Chris O’Donnel’s Robin, but as you said, Shumacher really deserves the blame for that one. God I hate Shia Lebouf for Sam Witwicky. I haven’t seen the Blade films, but I generally love Ryan Reynolds and think he can be hilarious in his deliveries as well as dramatically powerful. I can’t really remember Jingle All the Way but I was surprised to see it on here ’cause it’s Jingle All the Way, why wouldn’t it have annoying characters?
The daughter in Taken (Maggie Grace).
On par with Dakota Fanning in War of the Worlds/anything.