Actors' awful accents annoy

Harrison Ford is not "RAW-shun." He only plays one in "K-19: The Widowmaker."

Yet as awful as his affected accent is — and it is horrible — it's hardly the worst thing about the new submarine thriller.

With the possible exception of Ford's co-star Liam Neeson, who still sounds Irish no matter what accent he's attempting, the rest of the cast sounds as if it's imitating Walter Koenig's Russian stereotype as Ensign Pavel Chekhov from classic "Star Trek" reruns.

Again, Ford's accent is not the worst thing about the movie. In fact, it's not even the worst accent to be heard in a major studio film, much less the worst ever performed by a big star.

Anyone remember Kevin Costner's stab at a British accent in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves"? (Evidently, even he was so embarrassed that he decided to ditch it about midway through the film.)

Or how about Ford's former co-star, Carrie Fisher, who adopted a terrible pseudo-British accent in the first of the "Star Wars." (Say what you will about George Lucas' directing, at least he was smart enough to tell her to knock it off.)

And most recently, there were not one but two horrific accents in "Captain Corelli's Mandolin," with Nicolas Cage sounding suspiciously like the Super Mario Brothers video game characters (which is odd, because he's Italian-American!), and Spaniard Penelope Cruz doing a Greek accent that sounded more like an impression of reedy-voiced character actor Peter Lorre.

It makes you wonder why they even try. After all, only a few actors can really do accents convincingly. In addition to actress-of-her-decade Meryl Streep, American actresses Gwyneth Paltrow ("Emma," "Sliding Doors," "Shakespeare in Love"), Renee Zellweger ("Bridget Jones's Diary") and Reese Witherspoon ("The Importance of Being Earnest") have all used passable British accents.

Maybe last year's "Enemy at the Gates" should be the standard-bearer. In that film, a cast of British actors played Russian characters . . . none of them even attempting to sound Russian. (And American character actor Ed Harris, who played a Nazi sharpshooter, didn't try to sound German.)

At least they were consistent — instead of being consistently awful.

• QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "I thought it was important for the audience to constantly be reminded that this was not a Harrison Ford movie. This was a movie about Russians." — Ford, explaining why he decided to use an accent for his role in "K-19."

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