New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Jake Gyllenhaal

Every so often, people wonder what’s to become of the great actors of the golden age of the 1970s. Who will replace them? Those who are left, including Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, and Robert De Niro, are either acting sporadically in bad movies, or barely acting at all. One of the problems is that so many actors in their 20s and 30s look younger than they are. Case in point: Jake Gyllenhaal. I’m not here to knock him as an actor, but even in his best work, such as Zodiac, he looks like a kid. I’m not exactly an oldster (I’m only 25), but I feel like watching him run around in Zodiac, seemingly as a dedicated, obsessed investigative journalist, is like watching an eight-year old kid play dress-up. So when he got cast as the lead in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, I was skeptical.

When I saw the posters of Gyllenhaal in the film, with shoulder-length hair and no shirt on, I couldn’t help but laugh. I’m not the target market for a shirtless dude, but said dude is meant to be a weapon-wielding badass. As always, Gyllenhaal looks too damn young, too damn childish to star as the hero of what was potentially going to be a major film franchise. Seeing as Prince of Persia has been out for over a month in theaters and hasn’t crossed the $100 million mark, that’s not happening; could part of the problem be Gyllenhaal? Along with maybe Ben Kingsley, he’s just about the biggest name on the movie; what’s more, hiring a white man to play a non-white character couldn’t have helped with fans of the video game source material. Either way, when you want a badass, don’t call Jake Gyllenhaal, at least not yet.

Johnny Depp

Yes, I know, Johnny Depp is in the middle of filming the fourth film in the Pirates of the Caribbean series (I’m mildly excited, if only for the prospect of having him face off with Ian McShane). But Captain Jack Sparrow is and was an outlier in Depp’s career. Before the first film in the franchise, people wondered what had happened to his sanity: why would he choose to star in a movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and based on a theme park ride? The scenes without Depp, in the first film, aren’t that bad to begin with, but Depp’s roguish performance vaulted the film to its success and guaranteed Depp years of comfort if he wanted it. Smart man that he is, Depp hasn’t looked back. You and I may not have anything nice to say about the recent Alice in Wonderland film, but it made over a billion dollars worldwide. Depp’s a big part of the reason.

So why is Johnny Depp such an unlikely hero? He’s not that intimidating (though Jack Sparrow is adept with a sword), and he always seems so easy to defeat. Put him up against Stallone and see who wins. If there’s an Errol Flynn character in the Pirates movies (and it’s a stretch, I realize), the winner is Orlando Bloom’s Will Turner. Captain Jack Sparrow is what would happen to Errol Flynn if he was playing himself, not one of his dashing lead characters. Don’t forget this about Johnny Depp, too: he doesn’t do action movies. Even in Sleepy Hollow and Nick of Time, two of his more action-based movies, he’s playing a regular guy or a wimp, or both. Depp is quirky, charismatic, and gauche, but he’s not an action star. Luckily, he’s playing to his strengths.

Continued:       1       2       3