Let's be careful to define our terms here. "Disappointments" aren't the same thing as "all-time worsts." We're not saying any of these were as bad as, say, Battlefield Earth or The Hottie and the Nottie or Carrot Top's facelift. The difference is that somebody, somewhere, in reaction to the reputation of the people involved or the hype that had been generated around them, got his hopes up in anticipation that these might be pretty good. Which makes it all so much more poignant.

1. CHRIS ROCK'S MOVIE CAREER: By the end of the '90s, Chris Rock's HBO stand-up specials and his talk show and his book had made him the most plausible candidate ever to fill Richard Pryor's shoes. He's still a triumphant comedian. But when he tried to add "movie star" to his resume, he choked, repeatedly, and badly. In movies as different as Nurse Betty and the remake of The Longest Yard, this fearless performer seemed hobbled by self-consciousness, as if he wasn't sure whether to try to act or just be himself. And while it's understandable that a young novice might feel awkward when he's suddenly called upon to hold his own against Morgan Freeman, it's another thing when he's failing to supplant your memory of the actor who played the bugler on F Troop.

2. VIN DIESEL: Between the start of 2000 and mid-2001, Diesel starred in Pitch Black and The Fast and the Furious and also accepted a smaller role in the contemporary drama Boiler Room, because, he said, he wanted to make sure people understood that he wasn't just an action stud but also a serious actor. (How's that working out for you?) He also walked away from the first sequel to The Fast and the Furious because he felt that he had to choose between it and the other potentially long-running franchises tied to his name — the Pitch Black-derived "Riddick" series, which hit a wall with its second, pricey installment, and XXX, which yielded a Diesel-free sequel starring Ice Cube. This year, Diesel returned to star in the fourth The Fast and the Furious film and is threatening to revive the XXX series with his pet director, Rob Cohen. This is some sad-ass trapped-in-a-revolving-door shit.

3. DANE COOK: At his mid-decade peak, Cook inspired a lot of cultural observers and trendspotters to explain that the lesson of his career was that if you're inoffensively bland, dependably edgeless, unoriginal, and unfunny —  and you sweat your ass off doing enough enough self-promotion online — you can be the most popular stand-up comic in America. A subsequent recount revealed that the most popular stand-up comic in America is Jeff Dunham, who offers everything to his audiences that Cook does, with the added attraction of racist puppets.

4. COLIN FARRELL: In the past decade, was there anybody, with the possible exception of Sarah Palin, who was catapulted from total obscurity onto the covers of more magazines and who did less to back it up? Sold to the public as a combination of the young De Niro, the younger Brando, and an Irish Pepe le Pew, he found his niche as a target for Academy Award show bloggers armed with STD jokes. In fairness, he managed to be likable and funny on those occasions — Intermission, In Bruges, even parts of Daredevil — when he got to play a clumsy dope who was light years away from being as tough, capable, or exciting as he imagined himself to be. But does anybody reallly think he was acting?

5. WES BENTLEY: After Bentley played the bug-eyed neighbor kid in American Beauty, his co-star Kevin Spacey (who himself would spend the next ten years serving as the best argument since F. Murray Abraham that the Best Actor Oscar is cursed) opined that, for his breakout performance, Wes would receive the "you-get-to-work-forever" prize. What Spacey didn't have the heart to tell his young friend was that the work might involve wearing a paper hat and asking people if they want cheese on those burgers.