13 Outrageously Awful 2014 Performances That Deserve Razzies

12. Russell Crowe As Pearly Soames - Winter's Tale

Akiva Goldsman's feature directorial debut had trouble written all over it long before it came out: a newbie director helming a big-budget fantasy movie coming out in February (aka Graveyard Season)? Even with a cast including Russell Crowe, Colin Farrell, Jennifer Connelly, William Hurt and Will Smith, it still stunk of a future Worst Picture Razzie nominee in the making. What was less-expected, though, was that Crowe would turn in one of the year's most misjudged performances as the movie's demonic antagonist Pearly Soames. Though it might in part be the fault of Goldsman for failing to protect Crowe in the editing room, Crowe's performance comes off as curiously schizophrenic and tone-deaf, played straight one minute and then gloriously, hilariously hammy the next. Granted, there's only so much Crowe could have done with a role in which he repeatedly headbutts Farrell's character in an attempt to kill him, but Crowe just lacks the terror needed to make the ridiculously self-serious narrative work, and his Nicolas Cage-esque mugging doesn't really suit what Goldsman is clearly shooting for.