The Best and Worst of Channing Tatum

Films Starring Channing Tatum I've Seen:
Coach Carter
Step Up
Stop-Loss
Public Enemies
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
The Dilemma
The Eagle
Haywire
21 Jump Street
Side Effects
G.I. Joe: Retaliation
White House Down
The Lego Movie
22 Jump Street
Foxcatcher
Jupiter Ascending

Best Performance: 21 Jump Street (2012)
For the first few years after Tatum became a breakout star, I viewed him as a talentless actor who only became famous because of his looks. Then 21 Jump Street came along in 2012 and proved that I was an absolute moron for thinking that. As officer Greg Jenko, Tatum beautifully riffs on the dim-witted meathead persona that had followed him his entire career up to this point and outshines a cast full of veteran comedic actors headlined by Jonah Hill, Ice Cube and Rob Riggle in one of the funniest movies to be released in the past 15 years. Tatum has gone on to prove himself as a equally skilled dramatic actor with great turns in 2013's Side Effects and 2014's Foxcatcher, but he's still never impressed me more than he did here.


Worst Performance: The Dilemma (2011)
There was a lot of solid actors including Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Connolly and Kevin James who came out of Ron Howard's thoroughly underwhelming comedy/drama The Dilemma looking bad, but Tatum gets the dubious honor of giving the worst performance in a film with no shortage of weak performances. The immense comedic gifts Tatum so readily displays in the Jump Street series are no where to be found here as he gives a bland, faux-macho performance as a heavily-tattooed jackass named Zip, who's having an affair with James' character's wife (Winona Ryder). While Tatum is cringe-worthy here, he can take solace in the face that he hasn't turned in a weak performance in the four years since The Dilemma was released.


Best Film: 22 Jump Street (2014)
22 Jump Street is the rare sequel that manages to top its predecessor in every possible way. The film perfectly recreates the tone and spirit of the original without feeling like a retread and the belly laughs are somehow even more frequent than the brilliant original. 22 Jump Street is the best comedic sequel of all-time and I can only hope the recently-announced 23 Jump Street can keep the flawless track record of this series alive.



Worst Film: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
For years, I've been saying that The Wachowskis should've retired from the film industry after their 1999 visionary sci-fi masterpiece The Matrix. After watching their latest film Jupiter Ascending, my retirement pleas have never been stronger. Simply saying that Jupiter Ascending doesn't work as a film would be severely undermining just how much of a colossal failure this is. The film is about as a thrilling as a prostate exam, the script is absolutely ridiculous yet features not even a semblance of irony, and Eddie Redmayne gives what is perhaps the most ludicrously overacted performance in the history of cinema as the film's primary villain. To be honest, Tatum is about the only thing right with the entire film, but that doesn't spare Jupiter Ascending from being far and away the worst film Tatum has ever appeared in.

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 Self/Less star Ryan Reynolds.