Stránky

Monday 17 June 2013

Worst Supporting Actor 2003: Alec Baldwin - The Cat in the Hat

Alec Baldwin received his only Razzie nomination to date for portraying Larry in The Cat in the Hat.
The Cat in the Hat is a very strange film. Its whole content is meant for children. But this version is completely inappropriate for them. So its biggest problem is that it doesn't know who does it want to be for. Therefore there are some very embarassing moments that make this film bad.
Alec Baldwin plays the biggest bad-ass in The Cat in the Hat. He is trying to ball the mother of the leading characters (played by Dakota Fanning and Spencer Breslin), but he hates her children, especially the one played by Spencer Breslin and so he's trying to suspend him to some camp (or somewhere, it's not important).
If you believe it or not, there's not any purpose for Baldwin's character's behaviour. We never know why he wants to be with Fanning's and Breslin's mother. We never know, why he hates her children. It is happening, because the screenplay says so and that's all. Therefore it's extremely bad character to play.
Many other actors would try to find this reason and somehow reflect it into their performance. But Baldwin doesn't do it. He doesn't care about this fact. He plays his part very self-consciously. And that's a big problem. He is extremely overacting, which wouldn't be so bad in this kind of roles. But he plays as if he wanted to be the main star of this film. As if he wanted to be the only one to shine. And that's the worst thing he could. An actor should know, where is his place.
So because of this self-consciousness he never has got a chemistry with some of his colleagues. And there's nothing worse than this for an actor.
I hope Baldwin won't be reading this review, so that he won't feel offended and he won't try to contact me publicly. But, just in case: Usually I adore Alec as an actor (I also enjoyed his so much criticised Oscar hosting.), this is just a performance that just didn't impress me, at all...

2 comments:

  1. Have not seen this one, but that picture alone makes it so I don't want to.

    Its funny that he got his only Oscar nomination this year as well.

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  2. Never saw this one either, but that picture looks amazingly bad. I sort of enjoyed How the Grinch Stole Christmas, though lol.

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