Can All-Star Casts Be A Bad Thing?

[Mitch Henessey]

With the release of The Expendables coming soon, I started thinking about how an all-star cast can impact a film.........

It can be cool to see your favorite actors and actresses team up, and appear in one film. It's like watching the NBA or MLB All-Star games on the big screen. But can all-star casts be a bad thing?

One popular film series that features all-star casts is the Ocean's movies(Ocean's 11,12, and 13). The entire series features famous and popular actors and actresses such as George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Julia Roberts, Al Pacino, and Andy Garcia. Those are just some of the big names who have appeared in these films.

Now you might be asking yourself, how could this be a bad thing? An all-star cast can take away from the movie. What I mean by that is, you might not want to focus on the story or plot of the film, because you're to be busy being in awe of all the big stars in the film. Or the film can be terrible, and the all star cast could just be a diversion.

Then there are a lot of people who don't care either way. They will just be excited to see a film full of big stars. Now there are a few exceptions when it comes to all-star casts. Sin City, The Departed, and Tropic Thunder featured all-star casts, and those films were pretty good.

So where do you stand on all-star casts? Can they be a good or bad thing? Or are you just excited to see so many big name actors and actresses in one film?

 

[Deexter Jorgan]

The Expendables is an ensemble cast movie, It boasts having the name's of the biggest action box office hits in one movie.

Is it a bad thing?, no but it is a big risk, the more stars you have in one film the bigger the paychecks get, which means the bigger the budget.

but it will prove to be a hit.

Having a film such as this coming to your screens means that they will need to use these names to market the film and it will attract alot of hardcore action fans in hopes that it will be the start of a franchise.

And its also clever marketing, think about it, you have different guys like Stantham, Stallone, Jet Lee all of whom have been huge draws in their own right coming together for one movie that will hopefully bring their collective audiances together, this will hopefully boost reciepts.

as for the story and plot of the film it all seems standard, and with a cameo from Shawrze****** and Willis in this film it will garner the attention it needs.

this film focusese on a nieche genre, don't expect to see something with amazing writing because none of these men are classed as character actors only action stars.

 

[jmt225]

As soon as I saw the thread title I was going to immediately bring up the Ocean's movies, because the ONLY reason those movies are even half-way entertaining is because of the actors in it. They're all so charismatic, and in a weird way, it feels like they're playing themselves.

Of course, sometimes it can take away from a movie. Take "Bobby," for instance, the movie about the hours leading up to the shooting of Robert F. Kennedy. That movie could have been really good, but they put so many fucking stars in it that it completely took away from the story and its meaning, and just made it about the actors in it alone. It was ridiculous.

And then you have really over-the-top shit like Valentine's Day, which I will never watch just on principle.

Anyway, I think it's only really okay when it's an action movie. Action movies are supposed to be good clean fun. However, if you do it for a drama such as they did in Bobby, it'll take away from the story big time, and if you do it for a romantic comedy, it'll just be MTV level ******ed.

So, yeah... good for action movies, but bad for pretty much everything else.