10 Ridiculous Performances That Totally Derailed A Movie

2. Sharlto Copley (Oldboy)

Spike Lee's recent remake of the Korean revenge classic Oldboy had a lot working against it from the outset, and though the film was totally unnecessary, it wasn't all that bad, at least until Sharlto Copley made his presence felt in the second half. It's difficult to know what Copley was trying to do here, because his absurdly over the top English accent feels so hilariously out of step with the otherwise dead serious tone of the film, that it feels in fact like it belongs in something else completely. Namely, pantomime. Why Spike Lee didn't smack him around the head and tell him to tone it down a bit, I'll never know, because it totally ruined a film that was already pushing it insofar as remaking a film that nobody really wanted to be remade. Copley's performance is the death knell, the last straw, though I suppose it does have its own perverse entertainment value.