The Best and Worst of Daniel Craig

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 "Logan Lucky" star Daniel Craig.

Films starring Daniel Craig that I've seen:
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
Road to Perdition 
Layer Cake
Casino Royale
Quantum of Solace
Cowboys & Aliens
Dream House
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Adventures of Tintin
Skyfall
Spectre

Best Performance: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
With films like Skyfall and Layer Cake, Craig has established himself as a pretty reliable action movie badass. However, the 49-year old Brit ,whose resume primarily consists of big-budget, stunt-filled spectacles- finest hour came in his co-leading role in the American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Craig got out of his usual, hardened tough guy element with an understated, laser-focused and subtly vulnerable turn as a disgraced Swedish journalist that gets wrapped up in solving a decades-old missing persons case.     

Worst Performance: Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
Craig became an international superstar a decade ago thanks to his gritty portrayal of James Bond. If you had watched him sleepwalk through the role of Alex West in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider five years before he first appeared as 007 in Casino Royale, his future success as an action hero would've seemed like a stretch to say the least. Despite being one of the film's main characters, Craig is so charmless and wooden every second he's on screen that I'd pretty much forgotten he was in it.

Best Film: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) 
David Fincher's version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo permanently shut down the "American remakes of foreign film are worthless" take that film elitists scream from the virtual mountaintops every time Hollywood adapts a beloved non-English language film. With its masterful slow-burn pacing and stunning performances from its entire primary cast (Rooney Mara, Craig, Stellan Skarsgard, Christopher Plummer), Fincher was able to make an engrossing, atmospheric and remarkably tense mystery/thriller that greatly exceeded the quality of the Swedish original. 

Worst Film: Dream House (2011) 
To be fair, Dream House isn't an aggressively terrible movie. Hell, there was a number of horror-thrillers that came out the same year (The Roommate, The Rite, Shark Night 3D, Straw Dogs, Apollo 18) that made it seem like the apex of cinema. However, it's a still below average thriller that wastes its creepy atmosphere and decent acting on a dull story full of weak, obvious plot twists.    

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 "Leap!" star Elle Fanning.