The single most crucial aspect of a movie is its cast. Without having the right actors, even productions with the finest directors, enormous budgets, amazing scripts, and high-tech special effects will fail spectacularly. Unfortunately, all it takes is a single miscast to bring a good movie down.
Of course, some movies are terrible – they get everything wrong, including the whole cast – but that's not what we'll be talking about here. Instead, we're talking about one casting choice that ruined what would otherwise have been an at least semi-enjoyable movie.
Villains should be intimidating and have some depth. Grace's portrayal, however, was whiny, uninteresting, unimposing, honest, and horrifically irritating. It was hard to watch.
Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker (Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, 1999)
Don't get us wrong, The Phantom Menace isn't a great movie, but it would have been a heck of a lot better if young Anakin Skywalker was correctly cast.
Mickey Rooney as I. Y. Yunioshi (Breakfast at Tiffany's, 1961)
Breakfast at Tiffany's is iconic – Audrey Hepburn is fantastic in it, and “Moon River” is a phenomenal song. However, a very problematic factor is the casting of Mickey Rooney as I. Y. Yunioshi.
Crowe is a fantastic actor, but his songs in Les Mis dampen the movie in a big way. Listening to his solo number, “Javert's Suicide,” is a genuinely painful experience.