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What's happening is good for some of those characters, and bad for the others. Can you tell which?
"I'm overwhelmed."
— Anakin Skywalker, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
A vague, wispy look of emptiness given by a character that's supposed to convey intense emotional shock, horror, or revelation, but really looks like they've been binging on every single narcotic known to man for their entire lives.
Trope named for a skit in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 where Mike Nelson attempts to guess the emotions portrayed by Kathy Ireland in Alien from L.A.; the correct answer for each was "Dull surprise!" It is also a meme in Transformers fandom, in reference to the art of Pat Lee.
The exact opposite of Feed Me.
Examples:
Film
- Fifty years ago, critics would probably be praising his "manly restraint" or some such, but it can be argued that actor Keanu Reeves has this in all of his movies, but it's most noticeable in The Matrix trilogy (which is apparently why the Wachowski Brothers hired him).
- Have you seen him play Klatu? Have you? Critics have referred to him as having the 'acting skills of a wok'. Arguably, both characters are supposed to be quite apathetic but, sometimes there's cool and collected and there's faintly braindead.
- Try watching Bram Stoker's Dracula, where Keanu's trying to conceal his Dull Surprise at the supernatural events around him AND keep up his painful Fake Brit accent.
- Wait, he was supposed to have an accent?
Comic Books
- Transformers fans have used this term
 to describe the emotions portrayed by the characters in any Dreamwave comics drawn by Pat Lee or anyone aping his style.
- During the Spider-Man story arc "The Other," an entire issue is devoted to Mary Jane's shock and grief at Peter's apparent death. Who did Marvel hire to draw this emotionally-charged issue? Pat Lee. Cue 20 pages of Mary Jane looking far more stoned than grief-stricken.
Live Action TV
- Kristen Kreuk's character of Lana Lang in Smallville. From finding out she's pregnant, to finding out about Clark's superpowers, to overwhelming joy, to anger and so on and so on. (Her other expression is the eye-roll-and-vague-smile combo.) Except in the earlier seasons, when she would make a face like a squirrel instead. Clark's facial expressions often tend towards...the other extreme. Gurn, baby, gurn.
- Zooey Deschanel in Tin Man and The Happening.
- If you think about it: Zooey Deschanel.
- Ashley Scott in Jericho. Sometimes she tries to cover this up by holding her hands over her blank face. With mixed success - many times this has simply ended up looking like she's sniffing her fingers, not a major improvement.
- Ghost Whisperer. Watching Jennifer Love Hewitt do this has been the source of many a Narmy moment. It really doesn't help that they end about half the scenes with a nice big close up of her so desperately struggling to make a facial expression, any facial expression.
- Anna Torv in Fringe. Particularly, teeth-grindingly noticeable considering that she shares scenes with one of the Largest Hams known to mankind, which is sure to emphasize any poor attempts at more subtle expressions in others. She's gotten a bit better with it though.
- Milo Ventimiglia, who currently plays Peter in Heroes. Does do a lip curl.
Anime and Manga
- Killy from Blame! is not the most emotive person in existence. The few times he is caught off guard, Dull Surprise is all he can express.
- Kira in Gundam Seed Destiny sports this when Meer Campbell dies and everyone is crying and he just looks like he just smoked a bunch of pot.
- Golgo 13 only ever has this expression. The trick here is that it's not supposed to convey emotional states, because Duke Togo has no emotions.
- Dude has sex with a lady and just lies there with that mild frown on his face.
- Ichiro of Nerima Daikon Brothers, while supposed to be the Straight Man of the group, barely speaks any higher than his normal speaking voice in any situation (singing notwithstanding).
- Takumi Fujiwara in Initial D gets to Ctrl Alt Del levels when his driving passion is awakened while watching his rival's perfomance during an illegal race.
- Prince Odysseus from Code Geass, to the point that his Fan Nickname is "Prince Valium".
- Kyon, of the obligatory Suzumiya Haruhi reference, mentally criticizes Itsuki of this in the SOS Brigade movie. Strange in that since his normal persona is at least something of an act, and a pretty good one at that. Even Kyon has trouble figuring out what he really thinks about anything.
Video Games
- Aerith from Kingdom Hearts II embodies this trope. It's really a shame, because she had a better voice actor in 1 who got replaced by the flattest voice ever.
- A pop singer being a better actor than an actress! Who would've thought?
- Shadow Of Destiny has fairly limited facial animations, so most of the characters look like this at some point, but Eike spends virtually the entire game in a state of Dull Surprise. It doesn't help that his English voice is fairly monotone.
- Silent Hill characters have this tendency given the limitations in the graphics; many fans consider the 4th game's protagonist Henry Townsend to be the worst offender.
- The limited engine of Deus Ex, combined with acting that ranged from ridiculously over-the-top (and borderline racist) to the flattest line readings imaginable lead to Dull Surprise in more than a few situations. Yes, the Agent-Smith-alike was too unemotional in the points of the game where he was supposed to be cool and collected.
- Several of the bad endings in the original School Days game end with Makoto staring blankly at whatever gruesome scene has just happened before him.
- Despite being an expert at Parrot Exposition, Solid Snake (of Metal Gear) is usually expressive enough with his face and body to avoid this even with graphics limitations - except in Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, which had really freakishly awful facial expressions. Snake's gormless, changeless expression in that game is referred to by fans as 'Mildly-Annoyed Confusion', and combined with his mindless repetition of things that other people say, and with his 180 IQ which is repeatedly mentioned in the manual and never demonstrated in the canon ever, it hits legendary Narm levels.
- Vernon in Psychonauts tells the most boring stories in the world, even when he tells of when he fell down a manhole and had to set his own broken arm.
- Boring to the point that the Raz jumps out of an airplane without a parachute to escape him.
- In Sonic 2006, this was often Sonic's reaction. Listen to the scene where when the Egg Carrier is going to crash, Sonic says with absolutely no emotion in this voice whatsover: "This ship is about to crash. Too bad Eggman!" Yet another example of Narm from that infamous game.
Web Comics
Porn
- Most porn "actors" suffer from this in their non-sexual scenes. You wouldn't think anyone could accomplish this in literary porn, but by God, they've found a way: SD40ka's characters' dialogue only becomes comprehensible when read as Bad Bad Acting or a Creepy Monotone. Somehow even the act of suddenly vomiting in reaction to getting suddenly, coldly cheated-on and dumped is still utterly devoid of emotion.
- Hell, even during sex scenes they can suffer from this. Honestly some actors look more bored than in bliss.
- Seeing how there's a bunch of people watching while one of them is telling you what to do, I would say it's kinda boring. Just another day at the office.
- They probably are bored. Scripted sex? Oooh boy.
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