I love a good cameo when it’s done right. A totally unhinged Matt Damon singing “Scotty Doesn’t Know” in EuroTrip? Love it!
DreamWorks
But too often celeb cameos are just plain pointless. Or bad. Or, worse yet, pointless AND bad! These are the worst offenders:MJ was a fan of the first movie and reached out about doing a cameo in the sequel. So, the Men in Black II team pitched him about appearing as an alien, which would have been perfect: the famously eccentric King of Pop popping up as an extraterrestrial and getting a quick laugh. But Jackson didn’t want to play an alien — he wanted to wear the black suit. So instead of saying no, the filmmakers shoehorned him in as “Agent M,” who calls on a screen to inform Rip Torn that a race of aliens called the Durlocks have departed and signed a peace treaty. Um, okay? WTF does that have to do with anything? Making matters worse, the scene also isn’t especially funny, and Jackson’s performance is stiff and oddly uncomfortable.
Columbia Pictures
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Some cameos make sense. If Jack Black walks onscreen for a quick gag in a comedy, great. But when Dame Judi Dench — one of the most acclaimed actors alive — shows up in a Pirates of the Caribbean sequel for a mildly amusing, ten-second joke, your brain doesn’t go, “Ha!” It goes, “Wait…was that Dame Judi Dench?” By the time you’ve processed it, she’s gone. And then you spend the rest of the movie wondering how it happened, why it happened, and whether Judi Dench was having money problems. That, to me, is the definition of pointless.
Walt Disney Pictures
3. Donald Trump in Home Alone 2: Lost in New YorkThis has got to be the most pointless cameo of all time. According to director Chris Columbus, the production wanted to film inside The Plaza Hotel, which Trump owned at the time. Trump agreed for a fee, Columbus said, but also allegedly told them, “The only way you can use the Plaza is if I’m in the movie.” Columbus later added, “He did bully his way into the movie.” Trump, naturally, denies this and says the filmmakers begged him to appear — with tears in their eyes, I’m sure. But putting all that silliness aside, the cameo itself is aggressively useless. Kevin asks Trump where the lobby is, which raises an important question: since when are hotel lobbies hard to find? Trump points him down the hall, and that’s it. It doesn’t move the plot forward. It doesn’t add a joke. It doesn’t reveal anything about Kevin. It just reeks of what it allegedly was: a tiny, awkward toll paid to secure the location.
20th Century Fox
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4. Dan Aykroyd in Indiana Jones and the Temple of DoomThis cameo isn’t terrible. In fact, it’s so harmless that plenty of people have watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom dozens of times without realizing Weber, the British-accented airport official who gets Indy onto the plane, is Dan Aykroyd. And that’s what makes it so weird. Aykroyd was one of the biggest comedy stars in the world at the time, but the camera barely lingers on him, the scene doesn’t give him a real joke, and the character exists mostly to deliver some minor exposition before disappearing forever.
Paramount
5. Madonna in Die Another Day
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Having the singer of the Bond theme also appear in the film? That sounds fun. Imagine if Billie Eilish had wandered into a Skyfall scene, or Paul McCartney delivered some light exposition to Roger Moore’s Bond. It had never been done in the franchise’s 40-year history, but when they actually did it, it was…not good. Madonna plays a fencing instructor who trades forced innuendo with Bond, saying, “I see you handle your weapon well.” Bond replies, “I’ve been known to keep my tip up.” Yeah, it’s like that. Bond then tightens her corset (the film seems desperate to cook up some heat between the stars in her minute on screen), she tells him two mildly useful things about the villain, and that’s it. Fun? Not so much.
MGM
6. Stan Lee in The Princess Diaries 2Stan Lee’s cameos in Marvel movies were fun. He was, after all, a Marvel legend who co-created everyone from Spider-Man to the Black Panther. Seeing him appear in, say, an Avengers movie, made sense! But popping in the receiving line to meet the queen of Genovia (played by Julie Andrews) for some weak joke about him learning English from watching the Three Stooges? That was decidedly less fun…and pretty damn pointless.
Walt Disney Pictures
7. Ewan McGregor in A Million Ways to Die in the WestSome cameos are pointless because they don’t produce any reaction. There’s no memorable role, no laugh of recognition, no clever line, no joke…nothing! A strong example? Ewan McGregor in Seth MacFarlane’s comedy-western A Million Ways to Die in the West. MacFarlane’s character asks a crowd why they’re laughing at a joke that isn’t funny, and McGregor — who isn’t even immediately recognizable — says he only laughed because the guy next to him did. That’s it. The entire cameo. It’s the kind of bit Family Guy would absolutely roast if someone else did it.
Universal
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8. Harry Styles in EternalsMarvel loves their post-credits scenes that set up future movies, but the one at the end of Eternals might be the most audacious. It doesn’t just tease a new character — it introduces one of the most famous people on earth, gives him a grand entrance complete with a little troll reading out his full list of titles (“Royal Prince of Titan, brother of Thanos, the Knave of Hearts, Defeater of Black Roger, the Great Adventurer…”), and then ends. That’s it. Harry Styles shows up, smirks, says he’s there to help, and the credits roll. The real kicker? Eros has not appeared in a single MCU project since. No sequel. No follow-up. Nothing. So weird.
Disney/Marvel
9. Iggy Azalea in Furious 7I’ll start by saying something nice. Iggy Azalea looks very cool in her ten seconds on screen. But this cameo? Oof. First, it’s presented like a major entrance. The movie cuts to Iggy, shot from the hero angle, as she emerges from a massive truck like she’s about to say something that will change the course of the franchise forever. And then she tells Letty: “Hey, there’s the girl I’ve heard so much about. Where you been at, ghost girl?” And then she’s gone, never to be seen or mentioned again in any subsequent Fast & Furious film. Pointless? You bet. Also, if a line like — oh I don’t know, let me pull one out of thin air — “Where you been at, ghost girl?” turns into something fans mock tirelessly? The cameo didn’t work.
Universal
10. Daniel Craig in Star Wars: The Force AwakensIf a tree falls in the woods and nobody’s there to hear it, does it make a sound? Similarly, if Daniel Craig cameos in a Star Wars movie and nobody can tell it’s him, is it really a cameo? Craig secretly played the stormtrooper in The Force Awakens whom Rey tricks into releasing her from captivity. He was filming Spectre at Pinewood Studios in London while Star Wars was shooting nearby, and basically asked if there was any way he could be in it. And honestly, the scene itself is good. It’s an important Rey moment. The problem is that Craig is completely hidden under stormtrooper armor, meaning the cameo only works if someone tells you afterward, “By the way, that was Daniel Craig.” What’s the point of casting James Bond in a cameo if the audience has absolutely no idea it’s him?
Disney
11. Cate Blanchett in Hot FuzzThis one is a lot like the last one, where the filmmakers seemingly asked, “What if we got Cate Blanchett and then made absolutely sure nobody could tell it was Cate Blanchett?” Blanchett plays Janine, Nicholas Angel’s ex-girlfriend, in the early crime-scene breakup scene… and she’s covered head-to-toe in forensic gear. So, one of the most acclaimed actors alive appears in the movie, and unless someone tells you later, you have no idea. To be fair, that was apparently the joke. Director Edgar Wright has said the idea was essentially, “Let’s get an Oscar winner in there but not see her face.” Still, as a cameo, it just makes me shrug.
Universal
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12. Andy Garcia in PassengersAndy Garcia appears in Passengers for one shot. He has no lines and it lasts all of fifteen seconds. Garcia plays Captain Norris, the commanding officer of the ship, who spends the entire movie asleep in his hibernation pod. He wakes up at the end, steps out of the elevator, looks around at the jungle Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence have grown inside the spacecraft over their lifetime together, reacts with a mildly surprised face, and that’s it. Movie over. Garcia actually filmed more scenes, but they were cut. So there is an explanation for a movie star appearing for one wordless, confused expression, but it’s still bizarre and pointless.
Columbia Pictures
13. Stephen Colbert in The Hobbit: The Desolation of SmaugColbert plays a Lake-town spy. He has no lines. His entire cameo consists of turning his head, letting his eyepatch slide down, and then the movie moves on. To be fair, Colbert is famously a massive Tolkien geek, so on a human level, it’s cute that Peter Jackson let him sneak into Middle-earth for a few seconds. But is that really the point of a cameo, so a celeb can have his fanboy moment? Cool for him, almost completely meaningless for everyone else.
New Line
14. Tyler Perry in Star TrekTyler Perry plays a Starfleet Academy official who presides over Kirk’s disciplinary hearing after Kirk cheats on the Kobayashi Maru test. And listen, the scene itself is fine. Perry even gets actual dialogue. But that’s also what makes the cameo so weird. Why is Tyler Perry here? Why did director J.J. Abrams look at this tiny Starfleet administrator role and think, You know who this needs? Madea! Perry doesn’t do anything wrong, but his presence is so random that it briefly yanks you out of the movie.
Paramount
OK, those were my picks! What are yours? Tell us the movie cameos that bug you as pointless or just plain bad in the comments or this anonymous form, and you could be featured in a future BuzzFeed Community post!
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