On-Screen Chemistry That Made Our Skin Crawl

A good movie is greater than the sum of its parts. When every actor and crew member works at the top of their game and executes every last detail, true magic happens. But before a single frame is shot, casting agents have to assemble the right collection of stars—and sometimes they miss the mark. We've all suffered through a movie that doesn't quite work because the romantic leads have nothing going on between them. Here are some of the least convincing couples in film history.

Not only was Rachel Dawes an adult love interest for Bruce Wayne, she was supposed to be an old childhood friend, too—but in Batman Begins, that warmth and familiarity is missing between the cold Christian Bale and the doing-her-best Katie Holmes. Bale is so icy toward his one true love that at times it feels like he's still playing psychopathic lady-killer Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. Holmes can't muster the charm and magnetism she displayed in a similar placed-on-a-pedestal role in Dawson's Creek. When Holmes opted to not return for the sequel The Dark Knight, Maggie Gyllenhaal took over the role—an excellent move, as far as chemistry was concerned.

The second Star Wars prequel suggests a crazy theory: are Padme (Natalie Portman) and Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) droids in disguise? From the "romantic" scenes depicting the ultimately doomed young lovers and eventual parents of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, it would seem so. How did these two characters ever actually do the physical deeds necessary to create children? Perhaps Portman and Christensen just didn't have a lot to work with. Star Wars movies are best when they're full of action and sci-fi whimsy; George Lucas just can't write intimate dialogue that isn't weird and clunky. As a result, the two actors, both great in other movies, don't ever seem to connect. 

This sci-fi cyberpunk classic (and, to a lesser extent, its sequels) enchanted millions with its depiction of technology run so far amok that humans have literally been robbed of much of their humanity. A crew led by Neo and Trinity (Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss) tries to destroy that dynamic and make humans free-thinking and independent again, and a defiant romance between the two develops. The only problem is that Reeves and Moss have so little heat together that their relationship is as cold as the unfeeling machinery that propels the story.

This could not have been an easy or comfortable movie to make. A lot of sex scenes—many of them intense and violent—were required of Fifty Shades of Grey stars Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson, forcing them to fake a shocking level of "intimacy." Maybe they were uncomfortable with the material, or maybe with having to pretend to have sex with a stranger. The end results make it difficult to fathom why their characters are into each other in the first place—which makes the experience of watching Fifty Shades feel like an act of forced voyeurism.

Knocked Up revolves around a pregnancy that develops after an unlikely hookup between a TV journalist (Katherine Heigl) and a bumbling slacker (Seth Rogen). The two fumble along trying to connect so as to eventually be good parents, but the lack of a spark between Rogen and Heigl lends the movie a palpable discomfort. The whole point of the movie is that the two lovers are improbable, but Knocked Up never shows how these two characters can even tolerate each other. A couple years after the film's release, Heigl gave Vanity Fair a de facto explanation for the lack of chemistry with Rogen, arguing that the movie "exaggerated the characters, and I had a hard time with it, on some days. I'm playing such a b****; why is she being such a killjoy?"

Relative Hollywood newcomer Brandon Routh had to make audiences forget about the last guy to play Superman in the movies, the legendary Christopher Reeve. Not helping things: Routh's complete lack of chemistry with costar Kate Bosworth as Superman's ex-flame Lois Lane. At this point, they've split up because Superman left for a while, but there's no trace of either character wanting to rekindle things, or even passionate anger on the part of Bosworth's character for Superman leaving her alone to raise their child. There's merely mutual anti-chemistry, colder than the Fortress of Solitude. Also, they seem about a decade too young to be playing either role, let alone have a son together, adding to their strange dynamic.

The complete lack of romance, heat, chemistry, sexual tension—whatever you want to call it—in the Twilight films is fascinating. This is the film series that captivated a generation with its supposed timeless romance and tale of love fair and true? Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattison are both very good actors, but throughout the Twilight saga, they stay stone-faced and seemingly vaguely embarrassed by the moony dialogue and long scenes of "romantically" staring at one another. Frankly, it's amazing that these two dated in real life.