Reese Witherspoon 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 Reese Witherspoon-whose latest project "Your Place or Mine" releases on Netflix tomorrow. 

Reese Witherspoon's Filmography Ranked:

16.Legally Blonde 2 (F)

15.Sweet Home Alabama (F)

14.Monsters vs. Aliens (C-)

13.Sing (C)

12.This Means War (C)

11.Just Like Heaven (C)

10.Wild (C)

9.Legally Blonde (C)

8.Water for Elephants (C)

7.Little Nicky (B-)

6.Election (B-)

5.Cruel Intentions (B-)

4.Pleasantville (B)

3.Mud (B)

2.Walk the Line (B)

1.American Psycho (A)

Top Dog: American Psycho (2000)

Director/co-writer Mary Herron, her co-writer Guinevere Turner and a pre-superstardom Christian Bale touched the sun with their brilliant adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis' darkly comedic cult classic novel that submerges the viewer into the mind of a psychopath while also taking a blowtorch to the shallow, narcissistic culture of greed, toxic masculnity and consumerism that shaped Patrick Bateman and the millions of people like him that actually exist.    

Bottom Feeder: Legally Blonde 2 (2003)

While I wasn't exactly a huge fan of the original Legally Blonde, the nosedive in quality it took with its sequel is astronomical. Whatever scrappy underdog charm Elle Woods had in the previous installment is completely erased courtesy of Witherspoon turning in the most apathetic performance of her career, the attempts at working sincere political drama into the plot are laughably bad and worst of all, the jokes are mostly just brutally unfunny retreads of the same "dumb blonde" jokes that often didn't land with any meaningful impact the first time around.    

Most Underrated: Mud (2013)

It takes a little bit to find its footing, but once it does, Mud turns into a gritty, atmospheric coming-of-age drama meets Southern Gothic thriller driven by the unlikely father/son-esque relationship that builds between the title character (a coldly intense Matthew McConaughey in one of his best performances) and 13-year old Ellis (Tye Sheridan-who does a great job of playing an aloof kid whose parents are in the midst of getting divorced whose desperate to seek guidance from any adult who is willing to give it to him) and nuanced portrayal of how something that one person views as an act of love can mean something totally different to the other party involved.

Most Overrated: Legally Blonde (2001)

The movie that sent Witherspoon's career into overdrive and made her arguably the most in-demand romantic comedy lead in Hollywood is a perfectly watchable, slightly amusing film that turns the fish out of water genre on its head by having that fish be an aspiring fashion designer who transfers to Harvard Law School to get back at her douchey ex-boyfriend (Matthew Davis) who felt she wasn't ambitious or smart enough to be involved in his future life goal of becoming a politician. Despite its merits, I just never felt it was funny or charming enough to live up to its beloved reputation within the genre.