12 Awesome 2014 Performances In Otherwise Awful Movies

12. Stanley Tucci - Transformers: Age Of Extinction

The Movie: The latest entry into Michael Bay's explosion-palooza, running in at an insane 165 minutes and boasting all of the casual racism and sexism you'd expect from one of these movies. The action is relatively entertaining in a totally mindless way, but the characters and plot? Unmistakably awful. The Performance: Stanley Tucci arrives relatively late into the movie, but steals every single scene he's in as Joshua Joyce, the douchebag head of KSI who tries to build his own Transformers before realising the error of his ways and trying to hook up with Li Bingbing's butt-kicking Chinese factory owner. Tucci is pretty much the only actor in the entire movie who seems to realise he's in a dumb popcorn flick and plays the part accordingly, going totally over the top and basically just injecting a lot more fun into what could've been an incredibly generic role. Whether he's sipping enthusiastically on a product placement-mandated soy milk carton, swearing at the locals or running for his life, he's about as good as the movie ever gets, and if he's not back for the inevitable fifth movie, he'll be sorely missed.