Sometimes a leading lady is important to the hero of the film. A lot of times she is the "damsel in distress" and other times she even assists the hero. When it comes to comic book movies, most of the casting directors choose a leading lady because they are "eye candy" and not based on their talent. The perfect examples is recently with DC Comics and Warner Bros. Since they relaunched their properties in 2005, DC/Warner Bros. has only released four films (Green Lantern is being filmed, Third Batman film and a Superman reboot are in the process) unlike Marvel Comics which has released twenty films since 1998 (with many more coming I lost count). Granted the Batman films were great, but the only flaw I had in them were the leading ladies. "Superman Returns" was good to a point, but again, total miscast with the leading lady. "Jonah Hex" was okay at best, but again, promoting a leading lady who is only in the film twelve minutes at tops. Let's examine these casting choices for DC/Warner Bros.
Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes in "Batman Begins"
For starters, this was a character created for the movies. Assistant District Attorney Rachel Dawes was not in the Batman comics at all. Others that were considered for the part of Miss Dawes were Rachel McAdams and Sarah Michelle Geller. I don't think Buffy would have been much of an improvement but Rachel McAdams would have been good in the part. Holmes was pretty much emotionless. I felt she was there to take up space and to just add a pretty face in the film. She also seemed intimidated to be in a cast that included several Oscar winners and well received actors. Her chemistry with Christian Bale wasn't at that level of Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder in "Superman" (which I will get to later) or even Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst in "Spider-Man." Her performance was not well received by many critics and fans and she received a Razzie nomination for Worst Supporting Actress. I also believe that a lot of negative buzz for her was due to the fact she had started acting a bit bizarre and started going out with Tom Cruise who started to jump on couches over her. As for "The Dark Knight" well...
Maggie Gyllenhaal replaces Katie Holmes in The Dark Knight
Officially, Holmes wanted to reprise her role as Miss Dawes in "The Dark Knight," but instead chose to do "Mad Money" with Diane Keaton and Queen Latifah, which didn't fare so well at the box office. I think we all would agree that Christopher Nolan did not like her performance and did not want her back. It was mostly due to the negative reception of her performance and the whole Tom Cruise thing. Maggie Gyllenhaal took over the role of ADA Dawes in the third-highest grossing movie of all time. Jake's sister was a slight improvement from Katie, but she, too, seemed emotionless as Rachel Dawes. When she started her relationship with Harvey Dent, I was hoping I was not going to see a carbon copy of another movie she was in where she started a relationship with an attorney ("Secretary").
*spoiler alert* and she didn't even show any emotion at all when she was about to be blown to kingdom-come in the film. So as we know, Miss Dawes, the made up character in the Nolan Batman films is done and we do not know if he will have a squeeze in the third film.
Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane in Superman Returns
Kate Bosworth as star studded, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Lois Lane, Superman's squeeze and always saving her from who knows what disaster is happening. Well I kind of wish the real Kal-El from Krypton would have swooped in and saved us from this epic failure of casting.
Many reasons Bosworth was wrong for this role. First, she was too young, at the time the film came out, Bosworth was 22 years old, and in fact she was younger than Superman actor Brandon Routh. Lois Lane, as I recall, is older than Superman. She also seemed too young to be the star studded reporter at a major newspaper (granted it was fictional, but let's put "The Daily Planet" as the fictional equivalent to the New York Times) when we all know no one at 22 would be lucky to get an internship at a paper of that magnitude. Also, she was supposed to have had a 5 year old kid. That would have made Lois Lane 17 when Superman left, knocked her up and flew away. And Lois was still a reporter for "The Daily Planet" at the time? Not saying you can't get pregnant at 17, it happens a lot, but I'm trying to get the fact that Lois Lane was a reporter at 17, got pregnant, when Supes gets back shes 22 and is THE star reporter. Hmmm... what world am I living in? For the record, Margot Kidder, who played Lois in the original films, was 30 when she played Lois Lane in the first Superman film. So somehow if "Superman Returns" is to take place after "Superman 2," Lois Lane goes from 32 years old to 22 years old, interesting.
Second, the hair dye job. They could have done a wig for her, cause Kirsten Dunst wore a wig for Mary Jane in "Spider-Man," but you can tell this was a bad dye job. I am not a hair stylist, but a blonde dying her hair black more times than not, always looks hideous in my opinion. You can see the blonde roots so much so that's all I look at in the film when I saw her. Her dye job looks so bad it looked like it was spray-painted on with Krylon. And when I saw "21," she wore a black wig as a disguise in a casino, HELLO, what does this tell you?
Third, she was only cast because Kevin Spacey. He who worked with Kate on "Beyond the Sea" and later "21," and he raved about her to director Bryan Singer. Of course, the director listened to the two-time Oscar winner. Claire Danes and Keri Russell auditioned for the part of Lois, but I still couldn't see either one of them with black hair. I am sure even Teri Hatcher was laughing at Bosworth's performance.
And yes, Miss Bosworth got a Razzie nomination for her performance.
You would think DC would learn from this pooch-screw. Well, next summer I sense deja vu, but that's another article that will wait until next summer.
Megan Fox as Laila in Jonah Hex
Okay. We all know Megan Fox is eye candy. We all know she can't act. Granted she was in the Transformers movies, but is that really a movie about human character development? No, it's about cars transforming and explosions.
"Jonah Hex" bombed so badly that it left the bathroom smelling so badly you don't want to go in there at all.
But Megan was only in the movie twelve minutes, and her character was pointless. She was just there, all she was was a hooker that's it. So she gets captured and then tries to help Jonah at the end and all, but her character was just there. I am sure Miss Megan will get a Razzie nomination for this, she needs to start making her annual trip to those awards.
Now many of you are about to go "Oh Clay here comes your Blake Lively bashing of Carol Ferris." Well No I am not going to go into detail on why "Gossip Girl" sleeps with everyone is a bad choice for Carol Ferris in GL. I have seen one photo of her as Carol with her hair dye job that I am sure looks just as bad as Bosworth's. That is why I think we will have Deja Vu of Kate's performance all as Carol Ferris. I will wait to see GL to really give her the bashing she will deserve. I still say casting her in it is an epic failure, especially over the other choices they could have made.