5 Awesome Ed Norton Performances and 5 That Sucked

By Stuart W. Bedford /

3. Death to Smoochy (2002)

Norton€™s Character: Sheldon Mopes / Smoochy the Rhino Why It Sucked: I€™m going to go on record and say that Death to Smoochy isn€™t actually all that bad. It was a complete commercial flop however, netting back only 10 of its $60m budget, and was pretty much universally panned by critics upon its release in 2002. Following Norton as the rising children€™s TV star, Smoochy the Rhino, who€™s unwillingness to play ball with the network lands him as a target for assassination, his performance here is wild and unrestrained, for me echoing elements of The Narrator in Fight Club if he was on Skittles flavoured Prozac. It€™s good for a few belly laughs, but ultimately, Norton €“ and indeed the entire movie €“ was just too strange and inexplicably vacant of emotion to be considered prime viewing.