Charlize Theron: 5 Awesome Performances & 5 That Sucked

5 That Sucked

5. Meredith Vickers - Prometheus (2012)

It is perhaps somewhat cruel to say that Theron's performance as Vickers was flat-out terrible, but never has any performance been so completely over-shadowed by a face-slappingly stupid moment by the character.

That's sort of true of the entire film: it is vapid but incredibly beautiful, the best-looking idiot of 2012's crowd of movies.

The real issue for Theron's performance, and indeed most of the characters in the film is that in its attempt to definitely not be an Alien film (yeah, good one) Prometheus threw the baby out with the bath-water. The atmosphere isn't there, the fear isn't as authentic and for some reason - catastrophically - the characters are as far away from the weirdos and reprobates of the "main" Alien series, which costs it horribly.

That means Theron - who should be a goose-stepping business Nazi - has precious little to do. Ridley Scott tried so hard to avoid the archetypes he needed for his genre film that he ended up hamstringing his talent almost unforgivably.