When Animals Out-Act: 10 Animals That Stole Movies From Big-Name Actors

Looking back on Adam Sandler’s filmography, there’s a bevy of underwhelming comedies, yet none maintains as much of an air of flat-out stupidity as Little Nicky. Nearly everything about the high-concept mess is off, namely Sandler’s irritating turn as a mousy Devil’s son cast upon Earth to fight his evil brothers. He mumbles dialogue like there’s a pound of Skippy in his gums, rarely makes eye contact with his co-stars, and doesn’t say a single funny thing. Other than that, though, he’s money.

It’s up to a foul-mouthed bulldog named Mr. Beefy (we dare you to call one of your male friends that) to rescue its few scenes from total embarrassment; thankfully, Sir Beef (that’s not much better) received the few moments of cleverness that appear in Little Nicky. Hearing a demonically possessed canine emit creepy kid chants instead of snores doesn’t exactly qualify as comedic brilliance, yet it’s an appreciated distraction from watching Sandler’s worst character of all time.

The creative minds behind this long-awaited yet destined-to-underwhelm comedy sequel pilfered from the original movie’s script in nearly every way possible, from the film’s structure to each character’s personality and moment of individual fuckery. Other than the setting, which shifts from Las Vegas to Bangkok, the only element from The Hangover that’s legitimately flipped is the first flick’s baby; this time, it’s a monkey involved in Bangkok’s criminal underworld that ends up in the Wolfpack’s possession.

It’s a nifty move on the screenwriters’ part, because the little primate (real name = Crystal) is the funniest thing about The Hangover Part II. Rocking a Rolling Stones jean jacket and baggy camouflage cargo pants, Crystal climbs wires, delivers baggies full of drugs, and makes cute “Oh shit!” faces during a car chase sequence. She also picks up the slack left behind by an extra annoying Zach Galifianakis and an incredibly obnoxious Ken Jeong.

The only way we’ll voluntarily see the inevitable Hangover Part III is if Crystal’s back; considering how unoriginal Part II, that’ll most likely happen.

When lambasting the uneven I Am Legend, one can’t place any of the blame onto Will Smith. Playing the last man on Earth, Smith is captivating throughout; he’s in pretty much every frame and his performance never wavers. The first half is basically just Smith’s last-man-on-Earth character, Robert Neville, and his loyal German Shepherd companion, Sam; always by Neville’s side and willing to grapple with zombie dogs in order to protect her pal, Sam (sort for Samantha) is the film’s one glimmer of hope. So when (SPOILER ALERT) she dies at the midway point, I Am Legend reaches an emotional high.

Less effectively, however, Sam’s passing also ushers in the movie’s problematic second half. Without our favorite Shepherd since Rin Tin Tin, the filmmakers resort to a generic female (human) sidekick and give the exceptionally lame-looking CGI humanoids more time to shine. In that sense, Sam didn’t “steal” I Am Legend away from Will Smith—she took it with her to that doggie heaven above the clouds.

If Zach Galifianakis knows what’s good for him, he’ll stop making movies with cute little animals. Much like how Crystal owns him in The Hangover Part II, Galifianakis was totally one-upped in Hangover director Todd Phillips’ disappointing Due Date by Sunny, a perfectly droll French Bulldog.

With his sardonic look, Sunny’s disposition mirrors the audience's, that of disinterest toward the mismatched pair of Zach G and Robert Downey Jr.; since he looks bored throughout the entire movie, RDJ is also bested by the pooch. When Downey Jr. spits on Sunny to spite Galifianakis, Sunny’s who we feel bad for; during an otherwise unfunny bit where Galifianakis jerks it in front of RDJ, the only laughs come from Sunny getting in on the masturbatory action. The four-legged star deserves some self-satisfaction; after all, he saves Due Date from an all-out collapse.

Imagine if Tai the elephant had starred in a movie that didn’t suck—you know, one that she had even the slightest bit of interest in making. In Bill Murray’s deservedly forgotten failure Larger Than Life, the massive elephant walks around looking like she’s bored to tears; granted, it’s not like elephants ever come across as anything more than apathetic. But still, Tai plods through every scene with a distinct sleepiness.

And here’s the crazy part: She’s electric compared to Murray. Larger Than Life must’ve come at a time when Murray had some debts to pay off; playing a motivational speaker who inherits his dead father’s beloved pachyderm, named Vera, the usually hilarious actor drifts through the film without saying anything even remotely humorous.

He’s the straight-man to Tai’s mischievous sidekick, yet even Tai seems humiliated at having to pull laughs from scenes in which she steps on cell phones and eats a bunch of junk food. Give her some credit—she’s the only one who left the Larger Than Life set with any dignity.

In the box office bomb Furry Vengeance, a.k.a. Brendan Fraser’s Darkest Hour, the once-respectable actor completes his descent into shitsville as a real estate developer tormented by the non-human inhabitants of land upon which he’s developing property. What could’ve been a lighthearted and kiddy riff on Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds is ultimately 2010’s most obnoxious movie, especially if you’re a fan of Cypress Hill.

Over 90 horrific minutes, animals repeatedly bite Fraser’s crotch, cause hot liquids to splash on his crotch, and leave him dangling from a tree inside a Port-A-John. Furry Vengeance actually becomes somewhat fun if you think of its animal cast (led by a squirrel, a bear, and a skunk) as attackers dispatched from cinematic hell, assigned to beat Fraser up for his many sins against moviegoers. We were this close to putting the chimp from 1997’s George Of The Jungle on this list, too.

2002 wasn’t a very good year for Cuba Gooding, Jr. Six years removed from his Oscar-winning performance in Jerry Maguire, the once-hot actor took a beating from critics throughout ’02, starring in the abysmal Boat Trip, the lame musical dramedy The Fighting Temptations, and Snow Dogs, a middling children’s film in which eleven canines run circles around him performance-wise.

In this case, though, Gooding, Jr. laughed all the way to the bank—Snow Dogs inexplicably earned $82 million domestically, despite offering little more than pratfalls and wide-eyed expressions from its unfortunate star. The dogs themselves aren’t even in the movie all that much, but their scenes are much-needed diversions from Gooding’s awkward and tedious physical comedy. He should’ve just coughed up his Best Supporting Actor trophy and given it to whichever pooch who barked first.

Does it matter that Ed, the chimp third baseman in this laugh-free family comedy, is actually an animatronic puppet? Yes, actually. To minimally defend the other actors on this list, they all had to contend with creatures that breathe and have souls, albeit with the occasional CGI facial movements; in Ed, Matt LeBlanc—a huge television star at the time thanks to Friends—is essentially upstaged by a life-size toy. No wonder he was subsequently benched on Hollywood’s leading man team.

LeBlanc, whose performance brings to mind a poor man’s Tony Danza whenever he’s not completely wooden, is no match for Ed. A surprisingly lifelike puppet, the fun-loving doll spits milk through its nose, farts, drives a pick-up truck, and turns triple plays faster than Alex Rodriguez. Ed doesn’t have much to do other than act out a litany of Brainless Children’s Movie Screenwriting 101 tactics, but at least the animators gave it the ability to smile. Whenever LeBlanc grins, you can practically hear him whispering under his breath: “I’m going to fucking kill my agent.”

Don’t expect any hate here: Turner & Hooch is tons of asinine fun, and we’ll gladly defend its honor if anyone disagrees. When giving this one a look, it’s best to shut the movie off right before the climactic shootout, because—SPOILER ALERT—Hooch (played by a slobbering French Mastiff named Beasley) gets shot and killed in a finale that’s an out-of-place downer for an otherwise enjoyable buddy comedy.

Full disclosure: A few tears were shed the first time we saw Hooch go out in a blaze of glory. And that’s because Beasley is so damn entertaining prior to the movie’s tragic conclusion. Tom Hanks, giving an admirably self-aware performance, is the Bud Abbott to Beasley’s Lou Costello, huffing and puffing at every one of the mutt’s rambunctious actions (such as eating sneakers and drooling all over an expensive home entertainment center).

Turner & Hooch came out right after Hanks’ breakthrough comic turn in 1988’s Big, meaning he wasn’t big enough yet to turn down such a goofy project. At least that’s what Hollywood historians will claim, but we know the truth: Hanks was lucky to work with Beasley, not the other way around.

Bart the bear was the Marlon Brando of the Ursidae family. Though the professional trained Alaskan Kodiak Bear tore shit up in a dozen movies, his best work came in the mediocre action-thriller The Edge. Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins give it their best, but their combined efforts do little to take away from Bart’s ferocious performance.

And, yes, we realize that we’re praising a bear’s acting as if it were Daniel Day-Lewis, but try imagining The Edge without Bart—it’d just be a whole lot of bland talking and tiresome jungle-trekking. With Bart in tow, though, The Edge has a genuinely intimidating and believable villain, one who terrorizes Baldwin and Hopkins after their plane crashes into his wooded domain.

Since we’ve already talked Bart up to a ridiculous degree, let’s take it one step further: He’s to The Edge what Heath Ledger was to The Dark Knight. The obvious difference being, of course, that Christopher Nolan’s Batman flick wasn’t an altogether generic action pic.