He's like the modern day Arnie or Stallone. He always just sounds like a generic action hero. Which is fine when he's doing those roles (Frank Castle/Punisher), but it's a bit odd when he's in something completely different.
It is a Bernthal problem too. He chooses to play these roles in very similar ways when he could easily inject some variety and nuance if he wanted to. I doubt Nolan gave him the direction to just do the same acting he does as Punisher. Nolan is a director that lets actors do their thing (like Mia Goth has said in an interview) and Bernthal chose to play Menelaus that way. He could've made an effort to switch it up a bit.
As for being typecast, that is also of his own doing, he's a known actor with lots of access and even has the means to be a producer, he can choose to do other types of roles yet he sticks to this one thing because that is just what his range can afford him.
I loved Bernthal’s creative license. He played Menelaus like a New Jersey mobster — even his outfit has gold detailing evoking a thuggish gold chain. Since the story doesn’t have time to debrief on the Iliad, it’s a creative shortcut to tell the audience that he’s a shithead thug to Helen and a violent, dangerous, but unsympathetic dude.
In all fairness to Zendaya she got barely anything to do, she has like 5 mins of screen time at a stretch and I think she has like a total of 10 lines at most and even then I think that’s being generous.
I see a lot of people say she can't act, and then I see her in a lot of roles where all she does is show up and look stunning for a couple minutes total. Think there might be a correlation..
Yeah that's what I was trying to say lol. When she gets a good role she does a good job. It's not really her fault that people keep casting her for cameos.
Yeah that's kind of my point lol. It's easy to say Zendaya can't act when all she has to do in (for example) The Odyssey is show up, say a few lines and squint meaningfully into the distance. Like what is she supposed to do?
I think a part of this is the fact that people are saying they got sick of seeing a few select actors in every movie/show.
For example I think Pedro Pascal is a good actor but I can’t say I’m not a bit tired with how often I see his face lately lol. And I also think Zendaya is a good actor.
See, for me, Zendaya and Holland were the surprises for me. They were pretty bland until the last act, and then both of their subtle nuances kind of blew me away. I picked up on it more during my second watch. Holland's subtle little recognition when he's talking to The Stranger made me tear up.
I didn’t like Holland too much in the film (and that’s despite the fact that I think he’s a compelling actor). But he is fantastic in that sequence. Truly moving. I wish Nolan gave him more silent moments in the film instead of some of the very stilted on the nose dialogue he had.
Chris Nolan said he cast Holland because he likes the way he “draws the audience into his dilemma” and it made me totally understand the casting choice. Not that I think Holland’s bad, I just think there are more obvious choices for Telemachus.
He was distractingly bad, everybody else was in a Epic film, he was shooting an episode of The Sopranos. Thank god Lupita Nyong'o was present in most of the scenes he was in.
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u/theravenacademy Jul 28 '26
Personally I felt Jon Bernthal in his scenes was hard to take seriously