Perhaps I was wrong about Daniel Radcliffe all along

I don't know about the rest of you, but in general I've always found Radcliffe to be a tad bit underwhelming as an actor. He fits the role of Harry Potter, but I've always thought that in the films at least, the character's written to be a bit thin, all too reactionary and a bit passive in some regards. In addition, some of the scenes which demanded a bit more emotional power from him, particularly in Prisoner of Azkaban and Order of the Phoenix I thought he fell a bit short - though I do think some of his crucial reactions in Goblet of Fire are good. He noticeably improved from The Half-Blood Prince onwards, but I still thought he could've brought a bit more to his performance impact. Then in his post-Potter career, I've liked some of the things he's done, like The Woman in Black and Horns, but though he's technically okay in them, there's always a sense he's slightly miscast for the role, a bit of an awkward fit. Then in Kill Your Darlings I didn't believe him for a second as Allen Ginsberg despite the best efforts of the film, and in Victor Frankenstein I just didn't take to the film nor his portrayal of Igor for one second.

I may sound overtly harsh, but that's my opinion. But having seen Swiss Army Man today I feel that I may have to...retract my statements previously about him being only being able to kind of play Harry Potter and never feeling quite right for anything else. In Swiss Army Man he shows exactly why I might have misjudged him all this time; he takes on an utterly zany, bizzare performance in an utterly zany, bizzarre film that I thought I'd only be midly entertained by, but ended up loving quite a bit. The best quality to the film is of course, Mr Radcliffe as Manny, a corpse on a deserted island who's found by Paul Dano's stranded shipwreck survivor Hank. I'll not get into this performance into too much detail, as I may well be covering it in my future personal Oscar choices post...but just to my UK readers, if you're going to pop over to the cinema this weekend, please check out Swiss Army Man. I've found that publicity surrounding it has been surprisingly muted, and the presence of constant fart jokes and gross-out humour in the trailers might not appeal to some, but trust me: it's not just that. It's an intimately made, rather personal and absolutely hilarious/heartbreaking in equal measures film, that really hits you hard in both the heart and funny bone. And Radcliffe, to not give anything away, is a shining ray of physical dexterity in his performance worthy of mention to another famous Daniel (and I should mention that Dano's no slouch either).