This week’s 3x3 starts at the 44-minute mark of our Knight and Day podcast. We discuss the least convincing movie couples. And it is entirely by coincidence that Cate Blanchett – who we all like! – makes an appearance in each of our lists.
Dingus
3. Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie in The Good Shepherd
2. Cate Blanchett and Owen Wilson in Life Aquatic
Allison Doody and Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Tom
3. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in Curious Case of Benjamin Button
2. Renee Zellweger and Ed Harris in Appaloosa
Katie Holmes and Christian Bale in Batman Begins
Kelly Wand
3. Arnold Scharwzeneggar and Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies
2. John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale in Serendipity
Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried in Dear John. Normally in a Nicholas Sparks adaptation, the main characters and their romance is one of the better parts of the film, but in this one Tatum and Seyfried have so little on screen chemistry that most of their scenes nearly put you to sleep. Every time their relationship gets pulled apart you are almost cheering for Tatum to go find some other woman. It doesn’t help that Tatum and Richard Jenkins’ father/son relationship is just so great. The movie would actually be better if they’d dealt more with them and left the whole romance out since it just didn’t work.
And I totally agree with Tom on Appaloosa. That part of the movie, the romance, would have been better, I think, if Diane Lane had stayed with the production.
Sharon Stone and Stallone in The Specialist - This coupling always creeped me out…although I’m stretched to think of anyone who would be a good match for Sly.
Bridgette Nielsen and Arnie - Red Sonja . Ok they were both huge and it might have worked physically, I’m just not feeling the love between them.
Twilight Couples - Be it girl/vampire , wolf/girl , vampire/wolf . There’s no spark there , just exchanges of emo dialogue.
I had a hard time buying Evan Rachel Wood and Larry David in Whatever Works. Even with a man 12 years his junior standing in for Woody Allen, the age difference – 40 years rather than 52 – still seemed too great to be plausible. And she was a ditz, anyway, and totally didn’t work with Larry’s nihilistic know-it-all. I know he wrote the film back in the 70s, but making it now (well, okay, last year) ups the creepiness substantially, and doesn’t do anything to diminish his image as an aging lothario.
By the time he’s 80, he’ll be casting the Olsen Twins as country bumpkins from Mississippi who move to Manhattan and fall in love with some professor emeritus of philosophy at Columbia University.
Julia Nickson in Rambo II, of course, since her character was nearly as incomprehensible as he is. But she had to die because it was an 80s action movie.
The Constant Gardener - Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz. They have no chemistry together and their characters seem worlds apart with no interest in each others’ activities (his gardening and her activism) and are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. It’s so odd that I actually thought it was supposed to be a plot point, that she married him simply to get access to his connections.
Sixth Sense - Bruce Willis and Olivia Williams. Obviously this is on purpose given the plot, but since that’s a secret the first time seeing the movie it feels like such sloppy film making until the big reveal.
For number 3 I’ll just go with Natalie Portman and Hayden Christiensen in Star Wars Episodes 2 & 3.
3. Robert DeNiro and Sharon Stone - Casino
I can’t think of two people who were cast worse as a couple than these two. I almost never find DeNiro believable as a romantic lead, but he had zero chemistry with Stone, and was simply not able to summon the emotions to make me believe that he was obsessed with her in the slightest. And hers is just a mess of a performance - scenery chewing oscar bait with nothing of substance underneath. I think the problem would have been solved by recasting her with an actress with better magnetism.
2. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner - Daredevil
Whenever Ben Affleck tries to do “earnest”, I start laughing. Even Chasing Amy, which I know everyone loves, I find to be embarassing and fake (I do appreciate that it is partly supposed to be that way). But in Daredevil, it’s just painful, and I never felt any attraction between the two of them.
1. Tom Hanks and Audrey Tatou - The Da Vinci Code
Tom Hanks is so sexless that I have a hard time believing him as being part of a couple in almost everything, despite him being widely known as a romantic comedy guy. The Da Vinci Code is one of the worst of these. Was there supposed to be chemistry at all between the two leads? They spend the entire movie talking past each other. I don’t know if this movie would have been saved if it had starred two actors with actual sexual tension, but it couldn’t have been worse.
Did you guys all choose a Cate Blanchett pairing on purpose? Does this point up the fact that no one can hold their own with her? It makes me wonder if she’s ever been part of a plausible onscreen couple.
