The nature of film dictates that events are shown, not told (we have books for that!). Nevertheless, narration is sometimes necessary in cinema to provide context around the circumstances on the screen, describe situations happening off-screen, or provide backstory or a historical record that would otherwise make run-time far too long if it was actually filmed.
The dulcet tones of narration have enveloped many prominent contributions to cinematic history, like Citizen Kane, and Shawshank Redemption. Even George of the Jungle is pretty meritorious. Then there are these films, the narration in which provides neither context, backstory, or framework for the plot. Ladies and gentlemen, set your internal reading voice to "Morgan Freeman", and proceed with these 10 narrated movie flops, ranked.
THE GREAT GATSBY
While some would argue this 2013 film adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Long Island-based novel was a vast improvement over the Robert Redford led one of the '70s, The Great Gatsby took some liberties with the narration that many fans would consider blasphemous.
While fans praised Leonardo DiCaprio's take on Gatsby, the eccentric millionaire with whom the wide-eyed Midwesterner Nick Carraway becomes friends, they found Tobey Maguire's lapdog performance annoying. Also the choice to make Carraway narrating the film from a Sanitorium to a doctor altered the scope of the film's events almost as much s the garish art-direction distracted from the commentary of social themes.
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE
For some fans of Anne Rice's vampire novels, the final product of Interview with the Vampire, the Twilight of the mid-'90s, was a disastrous attempt to capture the otherworldly chronicles of the Brat Prince Lestat (Tom Cruise) and his consortium of immortal creatures of the night.
Whatever you might think of casting Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt as pallid and pouty-lipped vampires, the fact remains that Pitt's laconic voice-over as Louis was a real buzzkill. His melancholy ministrations managed to make every scene lose its momentum. While we understand that not everyone who's turned into a vampire dead and loving it, we couldn't help but think the film would have been much better with a few spicy excerpts from Lestat's morbid mind.
BLADE RUNNER
Ridley Scott's sci-fi opus Blade Runner has 7 versions available to view, some more widely circulated than others. While most fans swear by the director's cut, many have nostalgic memories of the theatrical version that was released in 1982 with the "blade runner" himself Deckard (Harrison Ford) providing narration over the film's key events.
Ford himself wasn't a fan of the narration, but executives thought it would help audiences connect with the cerebral nature of the film. You can practically hear the disdain in his voice as he gives exactly no emotional delivery. It also tended to appear at times that completely sucked all the dramatic tension from the scene, like the final moments with replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer).
I, FRANKENSTEIN
An action-adventure spin on Mary Shelley's classic horror tale, I, Frankenstein was the heroic re-imagining of a movie monster no one asked for but received anyway. Aaron Eckhart played Adam, Dr. Frankenstein's monster, alive two decades after his creator animated his corpse with electrical current.
Wandering the world alone, Eckhart's narration provides some insight into the creature's thought process, but whatever introspective purpose it might have served quickly gets swallowed up by the war he stumbles into between gargoyles and demons.
RIDDICK
The third film in the Chronicles of Riddick trilogy, Riddick features Richard Bruno Riddick (Vin Diesel) marooned on an inhospitable planet much like the one he navigated in Pitch Black. Armed with his wits and a pointless narration, he attempts to activate an emergency beacon to get help.
Part of what makes Riddick such an enigmatic antihero is the aura of mystery that has always surrounded him. Much of that was decimated in The Chronicles of Riddick, but there was a chance to regain it in this film, torpedoed by poor voice-over work that provided no further insight into what makes Riddick tick.
CONAN THE BARBARIAN
Not even the mellifluous tones of Morgan Freeman's narration could save Conan the Barbarian, a remake of the sword-and-sorcery epic Conan the Barbarian starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, and based on the popular fantasy comic book. This outing starred Jason Momoa, who seemed like a perfect choice after Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones.
Unfortunately, all of the humor and charisma of the Schwarzenegger version was replaced with gritty realism, and the sense of adventure was traded for unrelenting violence. It failed to connect with audiences, who were still waiting for a third Schwarzenegger Conan film.
THE KILLER INSIDE ME
What happens when an ordinarily sterling member of your local community turns out to be nothing more than a charming sociopath? That's the premise for The Killer Inside Me, which has a follow up question; why did a film that's so disturbingly graphic need narration?
Casey Affleck stars as Sheriff Lou Ford, a cunning killer who's managed to pull the wool over the eyes of everyone who knows him in a small Texas town. With gratuitous violence against minority women several times throughout the thriller, it's a tough film to watch, and even tougher when you consider the pointless narration that doesn't help audiences feel any closer to the distant characters.
THE INFORMANT!
Despite a great cast of talented actors giving their best comedic attempts, The Informant! doesn't do right by them. As fun as it is to witness Matt Damon play an affable every-man obsessed with being a spy inside his own office, the voice over fails to work within the confines of the neo-noir construct.
Damon plays Mark Whitacre, employed at an agricultural corporation, where despite having a good job, he wants to investigate it for the FBI. The narration is supposed to give you an insight into Whitacre's vapid mind, as he pontificates in a stream of consciousness about high-end Japanese sushi, poisonous butterflies, and any other thing that pops into his head.
SUCKER PUNCH
We wanted to like Sucker Punch. The action fantasy film had a competent cast, provocative imagery, and a Wizard of Oz sense of whimsy, but perhaps all of its elements failed to combine in just the right ways. It begins with a young woman named Babydoll (Emily Browning) being locked away in an asylum where her only respite from the horrible medical care is the fantasy world she's built in her mind.
She soon realizes she can do anything she wants in her virtual world, and wonders if she can use its possibilities to escape the asylum. With a group of other women imprisoned for similar reasons of impaired mental health, she navigates her new reality and tries to find a way out, all the while a narration exists that somehow manages to explain very little of what's going on.
THE LONE RANGER
Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, directed by Gore Verbinski, with the pairing of Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp, it seemed like The Lone Ranger would be a surefire success. However, the poor CGI, unexpectedly under-par performances from the leads, and jumbled plot left viewers hardly shouting, "Hi, ho, silver!".
The events of the film are recalled by an ageing Tonto, now part of a sideshow attraction, who wants the chance to tell the real story of The Lone Ranger to a passing boy. Depp's narration, like his Tonto, is surprisingly not charismatic, and seems like a another variation of Jack Sparrow.