4. Rafe and Evelyn - Pearl Harbour
There are a number of Ben Affleck movies that would have fit perfectly here. Gigli, Armageddon, Forces of Nature and He's Just Not That into You come to mind. This Michael Bay directed melodrama is queasy guffawing at its most nauseating. The soap-opera premise is never a good place to start, and no matter what the performances are like, it's hardly going to be Casablanca when the set-up is as sickly and melodramatic as it is. Affleck is a diabolical fit for any romantic comedy. He's a very handsome man, but that doesn't mean he can pull off naturalistic emotion on screen. Even in the romanticism of The Town, which is mostly brilliant, he falls short and stunts the fluidity of the scenes as he simply can't seem to generate false feelings for his female co-stars. Speaking of which, Kate Beckinsale acts in a state of mourning for three hours, and not just because she's being directed by the misogynist Bay. Her face holds a permanent sullen expression, which gets annoying very, very quickly, as her dark and downcast Evelyn grinds horribly against Affleck's puppy-dog eyes and earnest expression. The dialogue is hammy and belongs in Eastenders, the acting belongs in a straight-to-DVD flick and Evelyn distracts from the real love story of the film - between Affleck and Josh Harnett's Danny, who enjoy some homoeroticism straight from the playbook of Top Gun.