The Best and Worst of Terry Crews

“The Best and Worst of” series chronicles the career highlights and lowlights of an actor starring in one of the week's new theatrical releases. This week, I take a look at the filmography of “Deadpool 2” star Terry Crews.

Films starring Terry Crews that I've seen:
Friday After Next
Malibu's Most Wanted
Starsky & Hutch
Soul Plane
White Chicks
The Longest Yard
The Benchwarmers
Hard Times
Idiocracy
Norbit
Balls of Fury
Street Kings
Get Smart
Terminator Salvation
Gamer
The Expendables
Middle Men
The Expendables 2
Draft Day
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2
Blended 
The Expendables 3

Best Performance: The Longest Yard (2005)
From Chubbs to Crazy Eyes, colorful, scene-stealing side characters are a cornerstone of Adam Sandler movies. As a McDonald's-slinging inmate known as Cheeseburger Eddy, Crews held this vital role in The Longest Yard. Cheesburger Eddy was an early showcase for the great timing and willingness to commit to selling stupid jokes that has made Crews a reliably strong comedic presence over the past 15 years.

Worst Performance: Friday After Next (2002)
Friday After Next was a soul-sucking vortex for the abundance of funny people that were involved with it and Crews was no exception. In one of his first acting roles following his retirement from the NFL, Crews looks completely lost trying to salvage the series of weak jokes Ice Cube's janky script handed him.

Best Film: The Expendables 2 (2012)
As cool as it was to see a collection of high-profile action stars from across the globe share the screen in an R-rated blockbuster, The Expendables wasn't quite the over-the-top nostalgia bomb Sylvester Stallone promised it would be. Thankfully, the sequel ended up solving that problem. With its more self-aware tone, greater volume of excessive action scenes and a true scenery-chewing villain played by Jean-Claude Van Damme, The Expendables 2 was exactly the kind of preposterous, fun as hell throwback action flick that Stallone and co. set out to make when they started this franchise.

Worst Film: Soul Plane (2004)
Even with my love of all things absurd, I can't find much to like about Soul Plane. Outside of an unexpected death scene that's impossible to forget, this slapstick comedy that featured numerous future stars (Kevin Hart, Sofia Vergara, Crews) in prominent roles is a mostly painful ride through the friendly skies that is overly reliant on bad sex jokes and cheap stereotypes.

Thank you for reading this week's edition of “The Best and Worst of”. The next victim of my praise and ire will be “Solo: A Star Wars Story” star Thandie Newton.