Not every actor gets a shot to star in something good.
For these Hollywood stars, they might have earned plenty of screentime over the course
of their careers, but the substance of their work in Tinseltown has been noticeably slim.
Ashton Kutcher
In many ways, Ashton Kutcher is the Keanu Reeves of his generation.
He first rose to fame after starring as an airhead in That '70s Show and has had a hard
time breaking free of being typecast as a loveable dimwit.
In fact, his biggest claim to film fame was in Dude, Where's My Car? which featured him
as an even bigger numbskull than Michael Kelso or Reeves' time-hopping flunkie Ted.
"No way!"
"Thanks dude."
Unlike Reeves, however, Kutcher has yet to have his Matrix moment.
Instead, Kutcher's career has almost completely consisted of cheesy romcoms, including Just
Married, My Boss's Daughter, What Happens in Vegas, Killers, and No Strings Attached.
On those occasions where he has stepped away from the romantic scene, like The Butterfly
Effect and Jobs, he has largely been rebuffed by critics and audiences.
As a result of the movie world's unwillingness to take him seriously, prestige roles continue
to elude him, no matter how many Twitter followers he's amassed.
Jennifer Love-Hewitt
If you grew up in the '90s, chances are you either idolized or crushed on Jennifer Love-Hewitt.
She was the go-to beauty for teen-oriented romantic comedies, horrors, and dramas, which
certainly made her rich and famous.
However, none of those films actually register as very good.
Pics like Can't Hardly Wait, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and those Garfield movies
might've been decent popcorn fare upon release, but no one was adding them to their awards
season ballots.
She did have some luck convincing critics with her TV work in shows like Ghost Whisperer
and The Client List, but as far as her movie credits go, she's never really hit her stride.
Kirk Cameron
Growing Pains might've been made to last, but Kirk Cameron's movie career was not.
He had some silly teen comedies in the '80s and '90s, none of which have stood the test
of time.
But it's his post-2000 output that has made Cameron most infamous at the box office.
A born-again evangelical Christian, Cameron has mostly made films that center around his
faith, starting with the Left Behind trilogy, a modern-day interpretation of the Bible's
Book of Revelation.
Then there's Fireproof, the story of a firefighter who saves his marriage with the help of God.
You've also got Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas, the story of… Kirk Cameron lecturing a guy
on why Christmas is a Christian holiday.
That sounds like the kind of movie that can make Jingle All the Way look good.
"Shut up man!"
"What's so funny?"
Taylor Lautner
Team Jacob fans might've been crazy about Taylor Lautner.
But it turns out vampires do run faster than werewolves.
Because while Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart continue to stack up movie merits,
Taylor Lautner has yet to claw his way into a decent movie.
The Twilight star had something of an auspicious start, leading up The Adventures of Sharkboy
and Lavagirl when he was still in grade school.
But after the supernatural romance saga really put him on the map, he made a string of terrible
theatrical choices that have pretty much stunted his momentum.
"What a marshmallow."
From the clunky formula films like Abduction to appearing in rough comedies like The Ridiculous
6, there's really not much he's done that's worth watching.
Pauly Shore
Old-school MTV fans likely remember Pauly Shore as an obnoxious, weird-talking VJ who
called himself the Weasel for some reason, before embarking on a short-lived film career.
But Shore's filmography was just more of the same.
"Hello!"
"Hey!"
"Hah hah hah hah hah!"
Even his most memorable movies, like Encino Man, Bio-Dome, and In the Army Now, featured
him as nothing more than a glorified stoner with a familiar face.
And even that wouldn't last.
Really, the best movie he's ever been in?
A Goofy Movie.
"Look!
It's a leaning tower of Cheeza!"
Megan Fox
After getting her big break with Transformers, Megan Fox has had a hard time proving her
screen savvy outside of the CGI robot realm.
She did have a very small role in mediocre dramedies like Friends with Kids and This
Is 40, but other than that, she's had virtually no luck making something stick.
Even films that seemed to have promise at the start, like Jennifer's Body and Passion
Play, failed to earn much fanfare.
Most recently, she starred in the modern reboots of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise,
and despite their sizable budgets, those movies were hardly worth writing home about.
So even though she first hit the mainstream in the movies, she's recently turned to TV
to reinvigorate her future in showbiz.
And with screen credits like those, who could blame her.
Rob Schneider
If you look at Rob Schneider's career before he became a movie star, there was a lot of
promise and potential there.
He started out as a fledgling stand-up comic who had the chance to open for several comedy
legends and eventually became a writer and actor for Saturday Night Live.
After that, he and Adam Sandler became inseparable, and he appeared in a slew of Sandler's movies,
including The Waterboy, Big Daddy, and Fifty First Dates, to name a few.
He soon earned his own starring vehicles like Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, The Animal, and
The Hot Chick.
And while all of these projects might have helped to keep the lights on, the only trophies
they were worth of were Razzies.
At least we got a classic moment on South Park out of these lousy movies:
"He's about to find out… that being a stapler is harder than it looks!"
"Rob Schneider is.. The Stapler!"
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