Plenty of comedians try their hand at drama at some point or another (looking at you Bill Murray, Jim Carrey, and Robin Williams), often to critical acclaim. When dramatic actors try out a comedy, though, things tend to get dicey. Liam Neeson learned this bitter lesson when he signed on for Seth MacFarlane’s “A Million Ways to Die in the West.”

He plays Clinch Leatherwood, a notorious outlaw and the husband of Anna (Charlize Theron), who befriends Albert (MacFarlane), a somewhat wimpy sheep-herder. With Anna’s help, Albert learns the courage and skills he needs to take down Clinch. It’s a fairly bare-bones premise, but in the right hands it could have generated some quality laughs. Unfortunately, critics felt the film was decidedly not in the right hands. Or at the very least, the hands didn’t know what they were doing. The movie was bad, is what we’re trying to say.

We will admit that it’s at least a little intriguing to see Neeson as a villain for once. But he just doesn’t do anything interesting with this character (not like the script was helping). It’s just Liam Neeson saying his lines in a costume. Everyone else phones it in too, and we don’t just mean the actors. The story is meh. The cinematography and music and set pieces are all first level. Only some of the jokes land. Everyone involved can do better than this.