Why I Don't Like Mike Meyers

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The brief answer is: brutal overacting. I just caught a bit of Austin Powers while eating with my son the other day, and it struck me once again: watching anything with Mike Meyers onscreen -- he wasn't bad in Shrek is, for me, like having someone tell me jokes for a couple of hours while constantly shouting at me, "That's funny!!! Did you hear what I just said? It was really funny!!!"

I was thinking of Johnny English while watching Austin Powers, and thinking that when your acting is much less subtle than Rowan Atkinson's is, you are really, really overacting.

Comments

  1. Anonymous12:31 PM

    When I think of anybody who started out from SNL, I think, "That guy isn't funny."

    Jimmy Fallon? Mike Myers? Tina Fey?

    ReplyDelete
  2. gcallah12:45 PM

    They've had their share of not-so-funny people. But Bill Murray has been consistently funny, and has become a quite good actor. John Belushi was (often) the anti-Mike-Meyers -- in Animal House he could crack you up by slightly raising his eyebrows, whereas Meyers (or Jim Carey at his worst) would raise his eyebrows, stick out his tongue, contort his face, and writhe with his whole body.

    And Eddie Murphy has been off and on, but pretty good when he's been good.

    ReplyDelete

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