Examples of: Great Actors + Great Role = Great Letdown?

Yes, Day-Lewis and Ryder are both legitimately awful in this.  So, so bad. 

The one that just won Best Actor.

Director Michael Corrente told Dustin Hoffman there are 3 great roles in the theater - Hamlet, Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman and Teach in American Buffalo - you are too old for #1, already played #2 and .........

Hoffman played Teach while his post-Rain Man decline had already begun - a legendary role that Sam Rockwell takes on next month - and he botched it in every conceivable way. His look was off and too scuzzy.......his relationship with Dennis Franz made no sense - for some reason he seems scared of him here (?) - and Hoffman, a great comic inexplicably missed the huge reservoirs of comedy in the piece.

A major missed opportunity:

final answer: Jason Robards in Comes a Horseman

On paper this was such an interesting and multifacted character. He's the antagonist trying to force Jane Fonda off her ranch so he can own all the surrounding land to preserve its wildness, and despite his coldness, there's a deep implicit tragedy to his doomed resistance to modernization. The story frames Fonda's character as the holdout, but ironically the real holdout is the Robards character, obstinately trying to hold back a tidal wave in the effort to preserve a hopelessly romantic ideal.

Unfortunately he exhibits no charisma and the screenplay at best hints at this tragic contradiction without giving Robards a chance to explore it even a little bit. He has even less personality than a Bonanza villain. Actually probably a lot less. He barely even has one dimension. I'm at a loss as to how Pakula let this happen. How could you cast Jason Robards to be the coldhearted villain in your western and have him say all his lines in monotone and use this single sleepy expression for the entire runtime no matter what he's doing?? HOW

I must say, the combination of Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep doing a romance in a quasi-remake of Brief Encounter sounded very promising...boy, what a letdown "Falling in Love" was. Both the movie and their performances which just never really come to life, never have any energy between them. They seem like two statues forced to be placed together.

I don't think Day Lewis was bad, in fact he find a wife there, so he was happy of the filming, but he was the weakest of the 4 leads. And I could explain it.

Not. also I haven't seen the Yves Montand too.
I read that both leading actresses were blond (Mylène Demongeot Tuesday Weld were, instead of brunette).-
At least the Montand version was black and white, I've seen segments from it.-

Christian Bale as Batman. Ever since appearing in American Psycho in 2000 he was my first choice to take over the cowl, and I was over-the-moon upon hearing he was picked. While Bale proved to be a capable (if unspectacular) Bruce Wayne and a PHENOMENAL "phony" Bruce Wayne (for which he's basically reviving Patrick Bateman), it was to my major surprise and disappointment that this undeniable talent turned in a flat-out ABYSMAL characterization of the Caped Crusader in costume. The moment he begins with "YOU RATTLED HIS CAAAAGE....", the teenage grin on my face wilted in horror. To date, he remains the worst Batman ever put to screen, including the paycheck Clooney performance since that was simply limp and not actively grating and embarrassingly off-base. Even stranger, his performance grows worse and worse over the course of the trilogy, culminating in one of the most ludicrous line-deliveries ever spoken in a superhero film, which is saying a lot ("WHERE'SH THE TRIGGERRRR?!!!!! YUDNEVEGIVITTOORDINARYSHITIJEN!!!!"). Jesus. And aside from the voice itself, the overall vision of the character was woefully misjudged. I understand the rationale behind playing the Batman persona as a beast-like monstrous incarnation of Wayne's inner anger, but going so all-out with the over-the-top theatrical rage in a universe that seems so afraid of any type of camp, color, or surrealism just makes it all come across as absurd. I place the blame firmly on Nolan for this, but still... it remains the most baffling disconnect between my anticipation of a performance and the performance itself. Let's hope Pattinson doesn't suffer the same fate.

Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs and The Wife.

I'm a fan of hers overall, and on paper these roles seem so promising for any actress of an certain age. She was just forgettable in the first and bad in the second. Which is the worse crime, I think forgettable. If I had to watch one of these performances again though, it would be Albert Nobbs, as while that file was dull as dishwater, it wasn't a complete shit show like The Wife.

Leonardo Dicaprio in J. Edgar was a big letdown for me. It had so much going for it too (the biggest movie star in Hollywood portraying J. Edgar Hoover sounded so interesting to me. Not to mention the living legend Clint Eastwood as the director . What could go wrong? ) Sadly it fell flat for me and holds only a 43% rating on RT. It was the only negatively reviewed film for Dicaprio during his amazing 2010 to present run which is impressive. Leo looked like one of those vampires from 30 Days of Night in it. In the end it just didn't work for me.

Michelle Williams in an English language remake of Blue is the Warmest Colour?? I'm listening... 

Lucille Ball in Mame.
Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl in Doubt
Day Lewis in Nine (I still got nightmares)
Di Caprio in J Edgar
Kevin Spacey in Beyond the Sea.-