Director's career should be over for wasting $$$ on rock star scene.

Review the IMDB trivia section and you will find an easter egg on the DVD with an additional scene where Brendan plays a rock star. This post is about that scene.

That scene is WAY out of character with the rest of the movie and could have never worked in this movie. It's also way out of step with the persona that Brendan Fraser has built up so far in his movie career. Brendan basically always plays the same character in all his movies: a goofy, lovable, sweet, naive bumbler. He's that way in all of his movies and he's that way in this movie. That's why people pay to go see a "Brendan Fraser movie," because they know what to expect and they like what they get every time. That's how "movie stars" (as opposed to character actors) work and that's why a movie star's name on the marquee can draw an audience. This movie is compatible with his persona, the movie as a whole is a light, sweet, cute comedy.

But the rock star scene, while it has lots of merits on various levels including a great performance from Brendan, is way too dark, and would have been obviously so just from reading the script. Drugs, the F word, vomiting, suicide, public sex (oral and otherwise), all of that content is way darker than the rest of the movie and it's out of place. It's a good thing they cut the scene because it would have ruined the entire movie.

The scene is fully shot at what must have been great expense. Fortunately someone smarter than the director saw it in time and wisely got it cut. What I don't understand is how any director's career could have survived such an easily foreseeable misstep.