Mark Wahlberg's Best And Worst Movies

Whether you love him or hate him, actor, producer, musician, restaurateur and fitness guru Mark Walhberg has been a well-known name in the entertainment industry for several decades and seemingly has no intention of stopping anytime soon.

After getting his start in New Kids on the Block alongside his brother Donnie, his improbable career as a serious actor in films like The Departed and Patriots Day — who takes detours into numerous action thrillers as well as comedies like The Other Guys — is perhaps one of Hollywood's unlikeliest success stories.

There are few actors who can boast nominations for Oscars as well as Razzies. Walhberg's long career in the business has left a trail of movies with varying degrees of success in its wake. Lesser entertainers would have been completely written off by the public after the slew of stinkers on Wahlberg's IMDb page, but he keeps rebounding — and thriving.

To help understand the odd road to success that Wahlberg took, as well as the balancing act between his critically acclaimed hits and embarrassing flops, we're taking a look back at the eclectic Boston-born actor's best and worst movies.

It may be hard to believe that a movie that involves Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and is directed by blockbuster legend Michael Bay could deserve a spot on any kind of "worst" list. However, that's exactly what happens in this tonal mess of a movie, which focuses on the real-life story reported in a Miami New Times article about a gang of gym rats who run a kidnapping and extortion ring.

In the movie, when Daniel Lugo decides that he is fed up with his place in life, he hatches a scheme to kidnap a rich guy and torture him into signing away all of his wealth. The film mines its entertainment from the fact that the meatheads executing this high-level crime aren't exactly criminal masterminds. However, the film only uses the real-life events, which were actually quite horrific for the victims of the people that are now the subjects of a major blockbuster with A-list stars, as a set of proverbial traffic cones that it just has to weave its plot through. 

It's been criticized for not only glamorizing real-life villains, but for not adhering to the actual events enough to boast that it's "based on a true story" half as often as it does. No matter which way you look at it, Pain & Gain falls short as an action thriller, a comedy, or a dramatization of real-life events.

Given the very adult subject matter that this allegedly family-friendly movie gets into, it's hardly one for the kids. Having said that, it's also not really one for adults either. Although it marks a reunion for Mark Wahlberg and Saturday Night Live alum Will Ferrell, it fails to recapture the duo's earlier comedic chemistry.

The film focuses on strait-laced stepdad Brad (Ferrell) as he tries to win over the affection of his stepchildren. However, when their biological dad Dylan (Wahlberg) finds out that his ex has remarried and that another man will be heavily involved in his kids' lives, he gets back in the picture. Dylan is a wild, muscled charmer who is clearly favored by his kids. It becomes clear that he still has a bit of a rapport with his ex, and Brad surmises that Dylan's trying to get him out of the picture.

What ensues is an over-the-top screwball comedy, of which both actors have produced many. However, the movie lacks the X-factor of a Step Brothers or Ted. Instead, it feels like a paint-by-numbers buddy comedy that neither does anything particularly groundbreaking nor is it packed with any laugh-out-loud memorable jokes.

There was a widespread backlash against director M. Night Shyamalan shortly after The Happening hit theaters. While shocking endings like the one in The Sixth Sense captivated audiences and left them with something to talk about, it started to become predictable that some kind of plot twist was going to happen in all his movies, and the audience started losing interest after followup hits Signs and The Village.

As a result, when The Happening came out in 2008, Shyamalan needed to prove he was still capable of surprising filmgoers. Unfortunately for the director — and for Mark Wahlberg — The Happening failed to deliver on all fronts.

The film essentially focuses on a group of survivors in the northeastern United States as some kind of neurotoxin begins to grip the human race, causing mass suicides. As the plot thickens, Wahlberg's character —  a high school science teacher — figures out that plants have developed a defense mechanism to defend themselves from humanity.

While the plot sounds like a fun science fiction story, people were expecting there to be some kind of twist, and the reveal that the movie is one big anti-logging metaphor just didn't quite do it. Just as importantly, everyone involved, including Wahlberg, doesn't seem to be giving it their all. The Happening put another dent in Shyamalan's flagging career and made Wahlberg the subject of ruthless memes for years to come.

There's a well-known film industry curse stating that movies based on video games are rarely destined for greatness. Unfortunately for Mark Wahlberg, this holds true even in the case of well-regarded game series like the Max Payne franchise.

The film adaptation sees Wahlberg as the titular Max, a notoriously tough NYPD officer who has been sidelined to the cold case division after the death of his wife and child. Not so surprisingly, he picks up the trail of his family's killer after a new murder comes across his lap. What ensues is a wild detective story with the occasional gunfight thrown in. While it's billed as an action movie, it's hard to win over game fans who are used to playing out the action themselves rather than passively watching it onscreen.

The game earned top marks for the way it captured the film noir style and an impressive fighting mechanic that sees its main character go into "bullet time," which basically puts everything in slow motion except Max's aim. While these two elements seem like very cinematic fare, the truth is that explaining them just slows the movie down.

The film noir aspect grinds to a halt as a super-soldier drug is introduced and subsequently makes its way into our hero. Meanwhile, the science fiction is the only aspect of the film that doesn't feel like exhaustively well-trod territory. All that is excusable when the viewer can pick up a controller and wreak mayhem on their own, but it falls unbearably flat as a movie.

Mark Wahlberg has, like most actors, had his share of ups and downs. The Truth About Charlie falls on the latter end of his filmography because — among other things — at this stage of his acting career, he simply didn't have the chops to pull off a remake of the 1963 Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn classic Charade.

The film focuses on a young woman, played by Thandie Newton, who returns home from a trip keen on divorcing her husband only to find their apartment ransacked and her husband murdered. What's more, she finds that he was hardly the man she thought he was, discovering a myriad of fake IDs. In addition, a whole mess of unsavory characters come out of the woodwork looking for a mysterious deposit of cash.

Unfortunately, most of the reviews from the time can be summed up by this one line written by New York Times critic Elvis Mitchell: "Unfortunately, Mr. Wahlberg doesn't nearly match up in comparison to Grant."

It would be easy to blame the script, but the only other common thread that reviews from the time shared was praising Newton's work in the film. On the other hand, if not being Cary Grant is the worst thing you hear about yourself, it's got to be a pretty good day.