10 Exact Moments Actors Stopped Trying

2. Old Dogs, Old Tricks - John Travolta

Old Dogs John Travolta
Disney

John Travolta is one of the few actors capable of rivalling Bruce Willis' level of shamelessness where a career downturn is concerned.

Though Travolta's acting cred was rejuvenated by the success of Pulp Fiction, by the year 2000 he was on another ferocious critical losing streak, appearing in 13 consecutively panned films between 1999 and 2007.

Another comeback seemed to be on the horizon after he starred in acclaimed films Bolt and Hairspray, but the very next year Travolta was back to taking any low-effort paycheck role thrown his way.

Impressively, Travolta is currently on another run of 13 panned movies in a row, one of the first of which was 2009's atrocious comedy sequel Old Dogs.

The stunningly unfunny film also offers up the precise moment where Travolta shed any remaining dignity and effectively became a dancing monkey: the scene where he accidentally ingests the wrong medication and his face twitches and morphs as a result.

It's haunting and horrifying in all the wrong ways, and not-so-coincidentally was also Travolta's last theatrically released film to actually turn a profit. Yikes.

While Travolta did admittedly receive awards attention for his role as O.J. Simpson's lawyer Robert Shapiro in 2016's TV series The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story, the performance was decidedly more polarising among critics and general audiences.

Contributor
Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.