Bryan Cranston 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 Bryan Cranston-whose latest project "Asteroid City" is now playing in theaters in NYC/LA and expands nationwide on Thursday night.  

Bryan Cranston's Filmography Ranked:

22.John Carter (D)

21.Godzilla (D)

20.Larry Crowne (C)

19.Get a Job (C+)

18.Isle of Dogs (C+)

17.Red Tails (B-)

16.That Thing You Do! (B-)

15.Total Recall (B-)

14.Why Him? (B)

13.Trumbo (B)

12.The Upside (B)

11.The Infiltrator (B)

10.Kung Fu Panda 3 (B)

9.Last Flag Flying (B) 

8.Contagion (B)

7.The Lincoln Lawyer (B)

6.Power Rangers (B+)

5.Detachment (B+)

4.Little Miss Sunshine (B+)

3.Argo (B+)

2.Drive (A-)

1.Saving Private Ryan (A)

Top Dog: Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Saving Private Ryan is one of only a handful of war movies that I've ever seen that truly blew me away. Steven Spielberg is able to show off all of the visceral horrors of warfare with some harrowing combat sequences that revolutionized how movies in this genre are shot while grounding the story with human emotion by showing the steep psychological damage that comes from being exposed to those horrors for prolonged periods of time as well as the strength of the bonds between soldiers that gives them the courage to keep fighting for each other no matter what.     

Bottom Feeder: John Carter (2012)

While Disney has made plenty of more creatively bankrupt and visually-ugly live-action films of late, not too many can match the putrid stench emanating from nearly every frame of John Carter. Key Pixar architect Andrew Stanton failed spectacularly in his transition to live-action filmmaking by turning an adaptation of the novel (A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs) that George Lucas used as the inspiration for Star Wars into a brutally dull, convoluted space opera that has no sense of scale or narrative momentum and features a stiff titular hero (Taylor Kitsch in a truly wretched performance) that is hard to get invested in.    

Most Underrated: Power Rangers (2017)

It's kind of a bummer that one of the intended massive IP franchises that failed to materialize due to BO performance was perhaps the only one in recent memory that got all the character stuff right and the action stuff wrong. Power Rangers does an excellent job of exploring the Rangers origins as troubled yet ultimately good kids who are bound together by fate to become unlikely heroes, the performances from the Rangers (especially Dacre Montgomery, Naomi Scott and R.J. Cyler) are charming and empathetic and Elizabeth Banks brings the classic cheese from the TV Series to the table with some incredible overacting as the villain Rita Repulsa that makes all of the superhero shit fun despite the aforementioned choppy execution of the actual action sequences.

Most Overrated: Godzilla (2014)

A human-centric approach to Godzilla could've been interesting if the characters weren't so fucking lame (and the leads are played the typically amazing Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen no less!), the pacing wasn't so lethargic  and the limited monster action that did make it to the screen didn't look like it was lit with approximately 2-4 flashlights that were on low battery. Having the movie open on such a electric high with the nuclear power plant scene made all of the underwhelming crap that followed it that much more crushing.