Russell Crowe: 5 Awesome Performances & 5 That Sucked

5 That Sucked:

5. Jor-El - Man Of Steel

Casting Russell Crowe as Jor-El is like casting, well, Marlon Brando as Jor-El - a borderline genius move that gives a new Superman movie real gravitas.

Unfortunately, like much of Zack Snyder's reboot, Crowe's sorely mishandled, with the actor getting too much sci-fi schlock and not enough dramatic weight and thus not really leaving much of an impact.

It's rather odd that, despite having more screen-time than Brando, this actually hurts the performance. In the Reeve films Jor-El is this mystical presence, but here he's is like Clippy the Paperclip, popping up to give advice whether you want him or not.

At least he didn't come back in Batman V Superman to tell Clark about the time he killed a bunch of Kryptonian horses, so there is that.