10 Famous Acting Performances That Got Worse As Their Franchise Went On

10. Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) - The Matrix

Hugo Weaving went from being an acclaimed Australian character actor to a blockbuster icon with his performance as Agent Smith in The Matrix. A seemingly unstoppable AI program tasked with eliminating Neo and his cohorts, his ability to bend the rules of The Matrix and assimilate its inhabitants made him an extremely imposing threat, though in the long-awaited sequel The Matrix Reloaded, the Wachowskis decided to make Smith a more colourful, charismatic figure, to the point that he made Keanu Reeves' Neo seem kinda boring by comparison when he wasn't flying through the air and kicking a**. Weaving was clearly game, though by the time The Matrix Revolutions came about, he'd made the character descend into full-on cartoonish hamminess: who can forget the moment when Smith shows up at the Oracle's house and maniacally laughs to himself? It's impossible to take seriously, and given how this was the third and seemingly final entry into the series, it didn't exactly help prop up what was already a pretty flimsy conclusion to The Matrix saga. Of course, by the time there were hundreds of Agent Smiths running around The Matrix, it was already getting pretty goofy anyway, but Weaving just went for it and ended up mostly lacking the menace he had in the original movie.