#4 – Wade Barrett in “Dead Man Down” (2013)
I’m a massive fan of Wade Barrett. He’s just a huge Lancashire guy who mouths off a lot and elbows people in the face. That’s the sort of gimmick I enjoy, no silly costumes or undiagnosed mental health issues, just a guy who smacks people.
For reasons never fully explained, Barrett featured as a henchman in the film Dead Man Down – presumably part of the deal for WWE studios helping fund the production was that one of their superstars appeared in it. Can I buy into Wade Barrett as a thug? Definitely. In another life I could picture him smacking someone with a pool cue in a backstreet pub in Preston.
What can you say about his role as Kilroy in Dead Man Down? Well, he was in it. That’s about it. On the official trailer on the WWE’s YouTube channel you can see him briefly taking cover behind a car. That’s pretty much the highlight for him.
I strongly suspect that even the WWE knew they had a lame duck here as their promotional strategy for the film on their own programs was to have Sheamus come down and mock Barrett for his pathetic appearance in the film. When the people who put you in a film decide to advertise it by mocking you for being in it, you know you’re not getting close to an Oscar.
#3 – Paul Wight, AKA The Big Show, in “Jingle All the Way” (1996)
In fairness to the Big Show, he had only really just began his wrestling career in WCW at this point, so it wasn’t like a truly established superstar making the jump over to Hollywood when the seven foot giant was cast as “Huge Santa” in this Arnold Schwarzenegger Christmas film.
As you’ve probably guessed from the fact his character doesn’t even have a proper name, Big Show would not play a major role in the film. Instead he has a brief brawl with Schwarzenegger, punches a midget Santa Claus and sends him flying across the warehouse and then gets knocked out himself. It’s not as funny as it sounds.
It wasn’t a bad performance by the Big Show, but it didn’t exactly set him up for a side career in cinema and he wasn’t utilised as well as he might have been. Wight himself has said that he wants to expand his acting career and into roles that aren’t based entirely on his size.
Unfortunately for the giant, it is unlikely any director is going to cast him in a serious major role when they have the option of dressing him in a stupid costume and punching a midget.
#2 – Triple H in “The Chaperone” (2011)
As a rule I’ve tried to keep films funded entirely by WWE studios entirely off this list (otherwise I’d have three entries with the words “The Marine” in the title), however I am prepared to make an exception for this.
Triple H (real name Paul Levesque) gets a lot of grief about the direction he seems to be taking the WWE and the fact he seems to win a hell of a lot – which is of course nothing to do with the fact he is married to the WWE owner Vince McMahon’s daughter. Sometimes it seems a little unfair. However he must have been drinking bleach the day he decided he wanted to make a comedy-action movie starring himself.
Triple H plays Ray, a criminal who is trying to change his ways and volunteers to chaperone his daughter’s school trip. Aside from the obvious question of what kind of school chooses convicted criminals to chaperone school trips, you can see this won’t end up being a timeless masterpiece.
At least most of the previous entries on this list were just background characters; Levesque is the protagonist in this and conducts himself as gracefully as a polar bear on a jet ski.
Perhaps the worst thing about the entire thing is that Triple H can actually act – he was pretty good in Blade: Trinity. Stick to hitting people with sledgehammers Paul.
#1 – The Rock in “Doom” (2005)
Some people will think it is unfair that the Rock appears twice on this list and yet Stone Cold Steve Austin and Dave ‘Batista’ Bautista haven’t appeared once. Allow me to explain.
Steve Austin and Batista both have an ever-growing stash of straight-to-DVD action films under their belts. These usually feature them on the front holding a gun with some badly explained reason they want “vengeance” or “justice” on the back. I know what I’m going to get if I watch one of those films, so it is hard to be disappointed with them. The Rock aims higher, and thus has further to fall.
There was a time when the movie and video game connection was pretty much a one way street. You made a film and if you had any spare cash you’d throw it at making a video game. Some were pretty good (Goldeneye, Enter the Matrix etc), others (pretty much all of the others) not so much.
At some point – presumably at the point games developed a storyline beyond collecting rings or killing sentient mushrooms – people started making films based on video game franchises. Some of these have been very good, some, like Resident Evil, made a few good films about a decade ago and really need to stop now, and then there is Doom.
The Rock plays Sarge, part of a crack team sent to Mars to investigate a mysterious incident at a research centre. It’s pretty much a standard “base-under-siege and aliens” film from there on in that does nothing for the Doom franchise or any of the actors in it. Even the first person sequence doesn’t redeem it.
I’m not saying the Rock is to blame for how terrible this film is, but anyone who looks at a script that features a gene that causes evil and thinks “Yeah, count me in for that!” needs to consider their career options.
Have we missed any off the list? Is there a more worthy addition that should be here? Let us know in the comments below.
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