The Best and Worst of Tye Sheridan

“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 “Dark Phoenix” star Tye Sheridan.

Films starring Tye Sheridan that I've seen:
The Tree of Life
Mud
The Forger
The Stanford Prison Experiment
Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse 
X-Men: Apocalypse 
Ready Player One

Best Performance: Mud (2013)
Sheridan's breakout performance remains my favorite of his by a solid margin. As a bored, poverty-stricken Arkansas teenager who along with his best friend (Jacob Laofland) develops a friendship with a mysterious yet noble fugitive (Matthew McConaughey) after stumbling upon the abandoned houseboat he's hiding out in, Sheridan brings a sizable amount of heart to this gritty, grounded drama.

Worst Performance: Ready Player One (2018)
In a movie where Ben Mendelsohn puts on a clinic in cringeworthy overacting, the poor efforts from everyone else are kind of hard to notice. While it lacks the unintentionally comedic theatrics that Mendelsohn fills every scene with, Sheridan's performance as the film's protagonist is similarly stinky. By bringing nothing but a whole lot of blandness to the table, Wade Watts ends up being the complete antithesis of the vivid digital world he spends most of his time in.

Best Film: X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
Both generations of Fox's X-Men saga have spawned some really excellent and subsequently very underrated superhero flicks. The most recent installment Apocalypse is one of the top dogs in that exclusive camp.  While it represents a step back from the epic scope of Days of Future Past,  Apocalypse boasts terrific action scenes, an imposing villain that serves as a legitimately formidable opponent for the titular heroes, some legitimately emotional moments and of course, a great ensemble cast that elevates the material at every turn. 

Worst Film: The Tree of Life (2011)
Terrence Malick's mediation on the "meaning of life" epitomizes insufferable arthouse cinema. This piece of meandering, self-congratulatory indie trash that operates under the guise of exploring the many high-and-lows of human existence is about as enjoyable as getting kicked in the balls with a steel toe boot for 3 straight hours. Even entertaining the thought of watching this repulsive auteur masturbation session again makes me physically ill.

Thank you for reading this week's edition of “The Best and Worst of”. The next victim of my praise and ire will be “Men in Black: International” star Tessa Thompson.