When the appearance of a certain actor ruins or changes an otherwise good movie for you

I was watching "Rosemary's Baby" and after the movie's terrific and creepy first half the film starts to get silly and less intriguing as it goes, with the full collapse, at least for me, climaxing in the appearance of Charles Grodin as a doctor.

Maybe it's just because I grew up seeing Grodin playing a terrific straight man in family movies and comedies, but the moment he showed up I was completely taken out of the movie and couldn't help but inwardly LOL at the idea of Charles Grodin being the man Mia Farrow needs to see about her anti-christ baby; every line Grodin has became sarcastic and knowing to me, etc. Almost all of this having to do with Grodin's subsequent career in comedy, and nothing to do with the actual performance.

What are some movies that you were enjoying (or at least tolerating) but the second a certain actor appeared you either lost interest or the movie suffered an accidental change of tone for you (for better or worse)?

Maybe the change of tone coming because the actor was playing so heavily against type, or for some external reason like that (OJ Simpson's acting career to thread)

James Woods. In anything.

We rewwatched 'Casino' a while back when it was on tv, I hadn't seen it since college, and when James Woods shows up as Sharon Stone's slimebag boyfriend, it took me a while to get back into the movie. I hate him SO much. However, I realised that because I view him as a slimeball, he's actually quite well cast in the role as an unlikeable slimeball, so it worked out okay.

But yeah, in general, James Woods will kill pretty much anything for me.

John Travolta in 'The Thin Red Line'. He's far too distinctive to play against type.

Chris Elliott in The Abyss. The movie was kinda falling apart at that point, anyway, but his comical performance as "awed deckhand staring at offscreen water aliens" pretty much killed it dead.

!! James Woods is like the BEST thing in Casino (apart from maybe Don Rickles)

Even if that were true, I would never admit it because that would = bizarro world, and James Woods is the devil

pesci's my favorite thing about Casino

and the old dude who works in the grocery store & complains to his Mom about the mob all the time

John Travolta in 'The Thin Red Line'. He's far too distinctive to play against type.

In that vein, Ted Danson in Saving Private Ryan was pretty wtf.

Whenever "Groundhog Day" shows up in those AFI-type "best comedies" rankings, all I can think is "But Andie MacDowell is in that." I saw the movie a long time ago and don't really remember much about it, but c'mon, she is the worst actor of all time.

but she's worth it!

Hmm...

I fear something similar may happen with me and Malin Ackerman, who ... I cannot yet understand why she is in films at all. And then she keeps being in more of them. I would expect her to be an underwritten love interest in a Jamie Kennedy movie at best.

Chris Elliot also appears in, and takes one out of, Manhunter. He's supposed to be a credible forensics type guy at a meeting.

"awed deckhand staring at offscreen water aliens"

This is the exact moment where my DVD player switches layers or whatever it does, and plays the same half second twice. So he says "look over there!" (switch) "look over there!"

The Godfather Part III is by no means a good movie, but when Joe Mantegna shows up it really becomes even more farcical than it was before because he is basically Fat Tony.

I fear something similar may happen with me and Malin Ackerman, who ... I cannot yet understand why she is in films at all.

I don't think she's without talent, but she looks and acts like she was trained at ProducersWife School of the Arts.

I think one way to tell if you think someone is a good actor is that, when you're informed of who their killer connection/relative/lover was, you respond with either "Really??" (good actor) or "Oh, okay, this all makes perfect sense now." (bad). For the latter see: Leslie Mann.