10 Perfectly Good Actors We Wish Would Make Better Movies

I would love for this to be the summer of Jason Bateman, and it’s not just because of my dedication to all things Arrested Development. Bateman, with his skilled timing and expressive face, redefined the role of the “straight man” in comedy, making the middle Bluth as screwed-up (and occasionally as much fun to watch) as the loonier members of his family. He’s a perfectly good actor, and he’s demonstrated it with fantastic supporting roles in movies like State of Play and Up in the Air. The news that not one, but two movies with Bateman in starring roles made me more than a little excited.

Then I found out what the two movies were. And one of them is a body-switch movie.

I don’t really object to Bateman making these luke-warm comedies (his kids gotta eat, and besides, what actor hasn’t actually made a couple of flops here and there?). I just wish he’d balance them out with something, well, meatier. Now that the Arrested Development movie has been properly announced, we can at least look forward to Bateman’s reprisal in his role as Michael Bluth. Hopefully, he’ll give us something else to look forward to before long.

Anyway, the Bateman Situation, as I’m calling it, got us to thinking about all of the actors we love that we wish would make better movies. Here’s a list of 10.

1. Michael Keaton Sure, we love Keaton’s recent work in Cars and Toy Story 3 (he stole the show as Ken), but he lost a lot of cred with Herbie Fully Loaded and First Daughter. His earlier work in Clean and Sober and One Good Cop showed off his real chops.

2. Debra Winger She brought us to tears in Terms of Endearment and Shadowlands (both of which earned her Academy Award noms), but hasn’t done much recently (aside from a few In Treatment episodes). We want her back.

3. Jason Schwartzman Full of so much potential in 1998’s Rushmore, but started going downhill when he played Louis XVI in Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette.

4. Kirsten Dunst We loved her in Dick and lament the fact that she’s really just known for Spiderman now.

5. Sam Rockwell Moon was so, so good. We’re mystified by the fact that he’s he doing guinea pig voices in G-Force.

6. Sigourney Weaver She freaked me out in The Ice Storm and kicked serious ass in the Alien movies. So why is she in Cedar Rapids?

7. Anthony Hopkins He won an Academy Award for 17 minutes of screen time in Silence of the Lambs. That’s how good he is. But he started slipping with Meet Joe Black in 1998, and hasn’t made a good film since.

8. Sarah Polley Let’s face it: She was awesome in Avonlea and Ramona, and we loved seeing her all grown up in Go. Then she made Splice…

9. Ralph Fiennes Fiennes carries on a great English tradition of solid, classically trained Shakespearean actors. The fact that he hasn’t found an adequate role (possibly except for The Constant Gardener and The Reader) is a tragedy indeed. At least he’ll have Voldemort to carry him into eternity.

10. Linda Hamilton She’s always been more of a TV actress, and we enjoy seeing her in bit parts on Chuck and Weeds, but the fact that her last sort-of OK movie was Dante’s Peak is a real shame.