The Best and Worst of Chris Pratt

Films Starring Chris Pratt That I've Seen:
Wanted
Take Me Home Tonight
Moneyball
What's Your Number?
The Five-Year Engagement
Zero Dark Thirty
Movie 43
Delivery Man
Her
The Lego Movie
Guardians of the Galaxy

Best Performance: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
The performance that exposed the long-ignored Pratt to most of the free world also happens to be his finest work to-date. Pratt used the charm and sharp comedic timing that made him a weekly scene-stealer on NBC sitcom Parks & Recreation to make Star Lord one of the most dynamic and badass heroes in the vast Marvel universe. 

Worst Performance: What's Your Number? (2011)
Pratt's role in What's Your Number? is pretty small, but he's on screen long enough to completely embarrass himself in a generic "nice guy" romantic comedy role that completely suffocates all of his rich comedic talent. I'm thoroughly convinced he only agreed to appear to in this turkey as a favor to his wife Anna Farris, who was the film's lead.

Best Film: Moneyball (2011)
Pratt's first big-screen foray into drama couldn't have come in a better film. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and director Bennett Miller's look at the life of Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) and how he made the cash-strapped A's one of the best teams in baseball through finding unheralded young players and veterans who were considered to be past their prime nobody else would take a chance on (Scott Hatteberg, the player Pratt portrays, falls into the latter camp) is one of the most engrossing and collectively well-acted sports films of all-time. 


Worst Film: What's Your Number? (2011)
It was a true toss-up between this and Movie 43 for the worst film Pratt has ever starred in, but What's Your Number? gets the edge as it was somehow even more unfunny than the notorious star-studded trainwreck that was Movie 43. What's Your Number? is about as formulaic and brainless as a romantic comedy can get and features some of the most annoying characters to grace the screen in recent film history. Not even the presence of the always-great Anna Farris and Chris Evans in the two leading roles could make this dumpster fire of a movie more tolerable. 

Thank you for reading this week's installment of "The Best and Worst of". Next Week I'll take a look at the best and worst work of Inside Out star Bill Hader.