20 Great Movie Remakes With One Miscast Role

Whether straight, loose, or spiritual, movie remakes get a bad rep. Sure, there are more of them than there ought to be, and, yes, we have seen it all before. But you'd be surprised at how often a decent reimagining comes along, taking everything from middling to beloved films and making movies that, if not better, are at least enjoyable in their own right.

The Coen brothers' True Grit is a strong, idiosyncratic take on the Western; Robert Eggers' Nosferatu updates the aesthetic with the glorious scale and scope of modern filmmaking; and Brian De Palma's Scarface blows its predecessor out of the water. That said, even these triumphant remakes have their flaws, because it takes a village to raise a child, and every village has an idiot. 

From the leading men to the plot-driving bit parts, a whole host of excellent movie remakes suffer from one piece of miscasting; some merely in comparison to their previous incarnations, some because they don't fit the film, and even some that were intentionally miscast to give the new version a different flavour.

Whatever their sins, the end result is the same: great film, awkward fitting role. But as you'll see from the following 20 titles, none of their miscastings are enough to cause lasting damage.

Murder on the Orient Express returned to our screens in 2017 with an updated aesthetic and Kenneth Branagh both behind and in front of the camera as legendary Agatha Christie detective Hercule Poirot. Joining him to solve the mystery of who killed Johnny Depp’s gangster Edward Ratchett on board the titular train is an all-star cast, including Judi Dench as Princess Natalia Dragomiroff, Penélope Cruz as Spanish nurse Pilar Estravados, and Daisy Ridley as governess Mary Debenham.

Each passenger on the train has a reason to kill Mr. Ratchett, and the film is a quick murder followed by a lengthy anatomy of their reasons conducted by a grand moustachioed Poirot, all while the train is stranded by an avalanche. And every member of the expansive cast hits their mark and pulls their weight, sinking seamlessly into their parts. Well, all except one.

Maybe it’s the fact that she was in the middle of her Star Wars run and couldn’t shake her Rey-ness, perhaps her range isn’t all that, or it could be everyone around her is just too good, but Daisy Ridley doesn’t feel at home in Murder on the Orient Express. Rarely a scene goes by with her in which we are not reminded that she’s reading lines. Yes, she gives it a good shot, but mere delivery does not equal performance.