The Best and Worst of Cillian Murphy

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 "Dunkirk" star Cillian Murphy.

Films starring Cillian Murphy that I've seen:
28 Days Later
Batman Begins
Red Eye
The Dark Knight
Inception
Tron: Legacy
In Time
The Dark Knight Rises  
Transcendence
In the Heart of the Sea 

Best Performance: Red Eye (2005)
Wes Craven's claustrophobic, airplane-set thriller Red Eye has too many absurd, head-scratching plot points to be great, but the sheer force of Murphy's performance makes it worth a watch. Murphy brings the perfect blend of charisma and menace to the role of Jackson Rippner, a psychotic terrorist that ensnares a Miami-based hotel manager (Rachel McAdams) into an assassination plot involving a government official (Jack Scalia).

Worst Performance: Transcendence (2014)
Since his breakout role in the cult classic zombie flick 28 Days Later, Murphy has established himself as one of the most consistent, scene-stealing character actors in the film industry. Then Transcendence came along and proved that the underrated British actor wasn't bulletproof. The stoic, dumbfounded expression that was plastered onto Murphy's face throughout this film was a spot-on visual representation of how I felt while I was watching this dull trainwreck unfold in front of me.

Best Film: 28 Days Later (2002)
It took a genre outsider in Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 127 Hours) to shake up zombie films forever. The late George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead series envisioned zombies as slow-moving, aimless creatures that were easy to escape from if they weren't in packs. Boyle's film flips the script by making the zombies fast-moving, intelligent creatures that can chase down their prey with relative ease. This creative decision may seem trivial to non-fans, but it helps make 28 Days Later more captivating, horrifying and realistic-feeling than any other zombie film that came before it (or after it, for that matter).

Worst Film: Transcendence (2014)
In the dense, metaphorical library of movies I've watched in my lifetime, Transcendence can be filed under the very rare "How the Hell Did This End Up Sucking"? category. A film that boasted a cool, original concept centered around the horrors that occur when a deceased scientist's brain is combined with artificial intelligence, a stellar ensemble cast (Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Morgan Freeman, Murphy, Kate Mara) and a director in Wally Pfster that came up under the tutelage of powerhouse filmmaker Christopher Nolan really shouldn't have been such a boring, convoluted disaster.     

 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 "The Emoji Movie" star Patrick Stewart.