Brendan Fraser Ranked

Welcome to "Ranked", a weekly series where I rank a franchise or filmography from worst to best and hand out assorted related superlatives. This week, I'm profiling the work of Brendan Fraser-whose latest project "The Whale" releases in NYC/LA theaters tonight and expands nationwide on December 21st.

Brendan Fraser's Filmography Ranked:

14.The Poison Rose (D-)

13.Bedazzled (C-)

12.Extraordinary Measures (C-) 

11.George of the Jungle (C-) 

10.Journey to the Center of the Earth (C)

9.Airheads (C)

8.Looney Tunes: Back in Action (C+)

7.Crash (C+)

6.No Sudden Move (B-)

5.The Mummy Returns (B-)

4.G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra (B-)

3.Blast from the Past (B-)

2.School Ties (B)

1.The Mummy (B)

Top Dog: The Mummy (1999)

Calling The Mummy a classic might be overkill, but it has held up well in the 23 years since it was released. Its mixture of Indiana Jones-esque adventure and legitimately creepy horror elements makes for a lot of fun scenes, the wide-eyed giddiness Stephen Sommers has behind the camera provides this film with a relentlessly infectious energy, and Fraser and Rachel Weisz are a terrific action star/love interest duo that deserves more recognition for just how well-matched they are. 

Bottom Feeder: The Poison Rose (2019)

Watching something like The Poison Rose shines a light on just how sizable the quality disparity between direct-to-VOD projects and legitimate theatrical or streaming movies can be. While its content and narrative style definitely resembles that of a classic film noir, the execution of everything except the performance of Morgan Freeman on The Poison Rose is so distractingly amateurish that it's difficult to believe that it was made by a writer/director with a lengthy Hollywood resume (George Gallo) and stars a cast of recognizable veteran actors (John Travolta, Famke Janssen, Robert Patrick, Kat Graham and Peter Stromare all appear alongside Freeman and Fraser). My heart goes out to any person over the age of 50 who rented this back in 2019 thinking they were going to see some kind of cool old school mystery thriller and instead got treated to 98 minutes of shaky Southern accents, cheap wigs and a meandering story that features nothing that even resembles intrigue or wit.  

Most Underrated: School Ties (1992)

The alarming recent rise in antisemitism really elevated the resonance and urgency of School Ties when I watched it back in late October. This straightforward yet effective 50's-set story centered around a Jewish high school senior (Fraser) who hides his religion from his classmates/football teammates at a Catholic boarding school does a great job of highlighting how harrowing it is to live with a secret that could drastically change how others feel about you if its revealed and the powerful performances from both and Matt Damon as the school's biggest bully show off precisely why they're still working at the highest levels of the industry 30 years later.   

Most Overrated: No Sudden Move (2021)

No Sudden Move is an instance where an ambitious idea not working out as planned did significant damage to the final product. By greatly expanding its narrative scope and collection of characters in the back half of the film, Steven Soderbergh quickly turns an engaging, slickly crafted heist thriller into an unfocused, convoluted drama that ends on an abrupt and infuriatingly anti-climactic note.