The Best and Worst of Luke Evans

The "Best and Worst" series profiles the best and worst work of an actor starring in one of the week's new theatrical releases. This week I take a look at the filmography of "Beauty and the Beast" star Luke Evans.

Films starring Luke Evans that I've seen:
Clash of the Titans
Robin Hood
The Three Musketeers 
Immortals
The Raven 
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 
Fast and Furious 6
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
The Girl on the Train

Best Performance: The Girl on the Train (2016)
Even though he is overshadowed by multiple performers (Emily Blunt, Haley Bennett, Rebecca Ferguson) from The Girl on the Train's gifted ensemble, Evans still managed to turn in the finest performance of his career to-date here. Evans is a nice balance of charismatic and menacing as Scott Hepwell, a loyal yet short-tempered man who may or may not have had something to do with his troubled wife Megan's (Bennett) disappearance.
 
Worst Performance: The Raven (2012)
The first seven years of Evans' Hollywood-acting career has mostly consisted of thankless roles in movies that won't be remembered by the time the 2010's come to a close. Of all the disposable projects he's appeared in, The Raven is the only one where his indifference towards the material is apparent throughout the film. Like everything else in James McTeigue's Edgar Allen Poe-inspired fan fiction, Evans' acting is dull, soulless and often painful to watch.   


Best Film: Fast and Furious 6 (2013)
Fast and Furious 6 is easily the weakest of the long-running franchise's beautifully excessive recent entries. However, the plethora of absurd stunts and its immensely likable ensemble cast still makes it more fun than 99% of the other blockbusters that Hollywood has churned out in recent years. 

Worst Film: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
The lumbering, joyless The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey set the tone for what ended up being the most unnecessary trilogy I've ever seen. Peter Jackson reinforces his gift for padding the ever-loving shit out of his movies by stuffing 30 minutes of story into a nearly 3-hour film full of bad jokes, impressive CGI and a whole lot of walking (this is a formula that he proceeded to copy for the next two films in the franchise). While An Unexpected Journey is a painfully tedious viewing experience, I respect the fact that Warner Brothers granted Jackson the artistic freedom to make the most expensive visual sleep aid in the history of mankind  

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 "Power Rangers" star Elizabeth Banks .