10 Big-Name Actors Who Were Wasted In Major Blockbusters

3. Liam Neeson In Battleship

Peter Berg's Battleship was always going to have a hard time in 2012, caught as it was at the tail end of the Michael Bay Transformers trilogy and stuck in a tough time for action films, this mindless flick that pitted humans against aliens in a poorly pitched adaptation of the classic board game.

Knowing the film would struggle against other genre competitors and needing some extra bankability, the film brought in Liam Neeson. He was a popular star at the time, fresh off his rebooted action career, most notably with Taken 2 in the same year. Playing a commanding officer in the US navy, Liam could have made the film a little more bearable with his acting chops, but sadly it was not to be.

Neeson turned up in Battleship for a mere five minutes at the beginning and end of the movie to say his famous Taken line and pick up a paycheck, then unceremoniously walked out the door. With a cast including Taylor Kitsch, Rhianna and Alexander Skarsgard that hardly got audiences onboard, Liam's tiny role set a benchmark for wasting an actor's talents for some time afterwards. He would continue to flank other actions flicks in the leading for several years