The Best and Worst of Ken Jeong

“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 “Crazy Rich Asians” star Ken Jeong.

Films starring Ken Jeong that I've seen:
Knocked Up
Step Brothers
Pineapple Express
Role Models

The Hangover
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
Despicable Me
Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son
The Hangover Part II
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Zookeeper
The Muppets
Pain & Gain
The Hangover Part III
The DUFF
Ride Along 2

Best Performance: The Hangover (2009)
I completely understand and (somewhat) agree with the criticisms that the character became stale in the sequels, but I found Leslie Chow to be one of the best things about the original Hangover. Jeong's willingness to go to any length necessary to sell the absurdity of the material made Chow one of the most memorable oddball characters the Wolfpack (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis) encountered on their turbulent, surprise-filled journey to locate their missing friend Doug (Justin Bartha) the day after his wild Vegas bachelor party.

Worst Performance: Ride Along 2 (2016)
The impressively average buddy cop comedy Ride Along 2 wasn't the finest moment for anyone involved (Ice Cube, Kevin Hart, Olivia Munn, Tim Story, etc.) in the production. However, no one was slumming it more here than Jeong. His turn as hacker turned police informant A.J. Jenkins was completely joyless and never even remotely funny.

Best Film: Knocked Up (2007)
Judd Apatow's early work as a director is pretty much untouchable in my eyes. Following up The 40 Year Old Virgin with another smart, warm and hysterical ensemble romcom in Knocked Up was a hell of an achievement that solidified his place as one of the most important figures in the world of comedy. 

Worst Film: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son (2011)
While it very well could be due to the fact that they were released when I was a kid, I had nothing against the first two entries in the Big Momma's House franchise. They were silly, inoffensive comedies driven by slapstick humor and Martin Lawrence's likability as a performer. Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son, on the other hand, was a completely different story. Lawrence completely tapped out, nothing outside of a couple lines from Faizon Love as a janitor that's infatuated with Big Momma is even remotely amusing and it somehow manages to plod along for nearly 2 hours. Stone cold lock for bottom 5-10 comedy of this decade so far and a serious contender for one of the worst I've ever seen.  

Thank you for reading this week's edition of “The Best and Worst of”. The next victim of my praise and ire will be “The Happytime Murders” star Joel McHale.