10 Glorious Examples Of Overacting in Movies

2. Hugo Weaving €“ The Matrix Films

Agent Smith This one€™s slightly different, because while Agent Smith was always hammy in the first Matrix, it just exponentially increases throughout the sequels until he€™s tearing down the walls and elongating his vowels so much you could drive a bus through them. I call this ever-increasing bombast the €˜Mr Anderson effect'. If you watch him in the first instalment, it€™s slightly longer than it could be but you know he€™s trying to be menacing. However, by the time of Revolutions, it€™s occasionally so preposterously long that you just have to marvel at it before he adds the coup de grace of €˜we missed you€™, which nobody has ever said with such camp menace before or since. The fact of the matter is that you can€™t blame Weaving for going completely over the top, especially in the later instalments €“ the film€™s already abandoned any notion of subtlety at this point, so all Weaving€™s doing is racing to catch up with it. There comes a time €“ usually when there€™s about 400 of your duplicates on screen with you €“ that you just have to throw caution to the wind and engage in some uproarious moustache-twirling. Such a colossal narrative couldn€™t have succeeded with a regular villain, so dramatic monologues and demented villainy was exactly what the doctor ordered. Much like Pacino before him, Weaving goes right ahead and steals all the Matrix films from under Keanu Reeves€™ feet. It isn€™t a difficult task to do, but he does it in emphatic, ridiculous style.
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Durham University graduate and qualified sports journalist. Very good at sitting down and watching things. Can multi-task this with playing computer games. Football Manager addict who has taken Shrewsbury Town to the summit of the Premier League. You can follow me at @Ed_OwenUK, if you like ramblings about Newcastle United and A Place in the Sun. If you don't, I don't know what I can do for you.