Chris Pratt's 10 Best And 10 Worst Movies

Like many a hunky leading man who came before him, Chris Pratt got his start on television, first on the WB's "Everwood," then as loveable doofus Andy Dwyer on NBC's "Parks and Recreation." Throughout his beloved sitcom's run, he shed his silly, squishy alter ego's persona by taking small and supporting roles in films that ranged from campy horror flicks to Oscar contenders. Then, just as "Parks and Rec" was coming to an end, he landed the lead role in not one, not two, but three of what would become some of the biggest franchises of the new century.

As an actor, Pratt is best known for comedy and action. He's often cast as a slacker, buffoon, or jerk, almost always with a heart of gold. In particular, he excels at playing winning losers who the audience can't help but root for. His comedic sensibilities range from stupid-on-purpose humor to smart snark, but as his filmography will show, this naturally funny performer doesn't always work well in traditional rom-coms or raunchy slapstick. Pratt adds a strong and unique flavor to any movie he's in, and that flavor tends to blend best into quirky blockbusters and prestige films. He's also a gifted voice over artist, with vocal work making up a healthy percentage of his resume. These are Pratt's best and worst movies.

2013's "Movie 43" is so notoriously poorly made and offensive that critic Richard Roeper called it the "Citizen Kane" of awful. This extremely off-color comedy is actually 12 bad movies in one — each with its own separate director, cast, and title — held together by shaky, meta premise. Dennis Quaid plays Charlie Wessler, a wannabe screenwriter who's pitching to a studio executive, Griffin Schraeder (Greg Kinnear). When Schraeder shuts down his terrible and upsetting ideas, Wessler forces him at gunpoint to listen to the rest of his sordid plots. 

"Movie 43" stars a shockingly long list of accomplished actors such as Kate Winslet, Hugh Jackman, and Richard Gere (who reportedly tried to get out of the project), in short films that are each more disturbing than the next. But Chris Pratt and his now ex-wife Anna Faris appear in the most repulsive segment, titled "The Proposition." Pratt plays Doug, a man who's ready to propose to his adorable girlfriend, Julie. But before he can pop the question, Julie decides its time to come clean about her sexual fantasies — including a particularly unsanitary one that Doug doesn't share, but his friends help him realize that he'll have to go along in order for the marriage to work. The less that's said about what transpires in "The Proposition" and in "Movie 43" in general, the better. 

Just as "Parks and Rec" hit the airwaves, one of Chris Pratt's early films, "Bride Wars," hit the multiplexes. This romantic comedy is neither very sweet nor very funny, and worse for Pratt, it doesn't give him much to do. Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson play Emma and Liv, two best friends who are obsessed with weddings. Since they're both in long term relationships (Emma with Pratt's Fletcher), they fully expect to get engaged and serve as each other's bridesmaid in back-to-back nuptials at the Plaza Hotel in June. But since "Bride Wars" is much more of an everything-goes-wrong comedy than a truly romantic one, the best friends' weddings get booked for the same day due to a clerical error, which turns them into bridezillas and instant mortal enemies. 

Hathaway gets to take the big swings in "Bride Wars" while Pratt has to be the buttoned-up love interest who's increasingly concerned about her behavior. This chick flick could've been a clever takedown of the wedding industrial complex. Instead, it caters to some of the worst stereotypes about women, with nasty manufactured gossip and over-the-top catfights a plenty. A too-cheesy and unearned happy ending adds a frustrating final touch. It wasn't a box office bomb, but critics hated it, including Tammy Oler who puts it best: "Women, on-screen and in the audience, deserve better."

2011's "What's Your Number" has a premise that's pretty sexist from the start. Ally Darling (Anna Faris) is in her 30s and is yet to settle down. She reads a magazine article that claims women who've been with 20 or more partners have a harder time snagging a husband, does some quick math, and realizes she's slept with 19 guys. She commits herself to staying celibate until she meets the one, but ends up in bed with the boss who just fired her that very same night. Ally commiserates about relationships with her lothario neighbor, Colin (Chris Evans), who tellingly doesn't judge himself about his own one night stands. Not wanting to add to "her number," she decides to date only from the pool of men she's already hooked up with. 

Pratt shows up in not much more than a cameo as Disgusting Donald, Ally's once rotund ex-boyfriend. He's since dropped some pounds and gained a fiancé, and that she might have been wrong about him is what sets her on her trip through lovers past. The fat suit gag isn't at all original or funny, especially considering Pratt was able to be hilarious and endearing at a larger size on "Parks and Rec" without ever turning his weight into a cruel joke. Critics and audiences agreed that Faris, Evans, and Pratt were wasted in this gimmicky comedy in which a large number of desperate attempts at laughs fall flat. 

"Jennifer's Body" was screenwriter Diablo Cody's anticipated follow-up to "Juno," but it was a letdown at the box office and with critics back when it was released in 2009. The horror comedy stars Megan Fox as the titular Jennifer, a popular high school student and cheerleader and Amanda Seyfried as her less popular best friend, nicknamed Needy. Jennifer brings Needy to a bar where a police cadet with whom she's involved named Officer Duda (Pratt) is waiting to see an indie band, but a fire breaks out and kills several of the patrons. While the town's recovering from the tragedy, Jennifer appears to be recovering from a trauma of her own. She arrives at Needy's house dripping in blood. 

Needy eventually figures out what happened. The indie rockers made a deal with the devil for fortune and fame, and they offered up teenage Jennifer as their virgin sacrifice. Except, Jennifer wasn't a virgin. Thus, she was transformed into a succubus and has an insatiable hunger for human flesh ... especially the bodies of all those leering boys. 

It's hard to call this one of Pratt's worst movies. For one thing, he's in and out of the film before it even gets going. For another, it's become a cult favorite in recent years among fans who think the critical masses missed its feminist subtext. "Jennifer's Body" can be seen as a commentary on objectification, consent, empowerment, and female friendships, but sloppy execution keeps it from being funny, scary, or smart enough to leave its mark.  

If Chris Pratt's pre-franchise days can teach us anything, it's that this naturally funny actor just doesn't work that well in run-of-the-mill comedies. 2011's "Take Me Home Tonight" is one of many examples. This attempt at a wild romp about a bunch of recent college grads doesn't really add anything to the genre. Topher Grace plays Matt, a directionless guy who isn't living up to his fathers expectations as he works at a video store and pines after his high school crush. Anna Faris is Wendy, Matt's sister, and Pratt is her kind-of-beneath-her boyfriend, Kyle. While Matt tries to impress the object of his affection with lies about his job prospects, cocaine, and a stolen convertible, he's also worrying about Wendy's surprise engagement to Kyle, as he thinks it'll derail her plans to go to an elite grad school. 

Pratt and Faris met during preproduction of "Take Me Home Tonight" in 2007 and married themselves in 2008, years before the movie came out. Universal shelved it because the studio didn't know how to market a teen comedy that contained heavy drug use, which necessitated an R rating. It was sold to Relativity Media and made its way to theaters a full four years later, to underwhelming critical and audience response.

2013's "Delivery Man" is a remake of the Canadian film "Starbuck," and most critics agreed that the original was better ... with one exception. Vince Vaughn plays meat truck driver and prolific sperm donor David Wozniak, who's gotten himself into serious debt with some shady characters. David learns that his donations have resulted in the birth of 533 children, many of whom have joined a class action lawsuit in hopes the fertility clinic will reveal their father's identity. The men he owes money to are a risk to his own family (his father and pregnant girlfriend, who also happens to be with the NYPD), so David relies on his friend Brett (Pratt) — a lawyer and overwhelmed dad — to help him countersue for $200,000 and keep his records sealed. 

"Delivery Man" isn't afraid to be bawdy (as much as its PG-13 rating will allow) or sentimental, which makes this dramedy watchable if not quite good. What starts as a typical Vaughn-style comedy about a callous loser of a leading man getting into trouble morphs at about the halfway point into a feel-good story about the miracle of life, as David sets out to meet and become a guardian angel to his progeny. Some reviews dinged Vaughn for his limited range as an actor, but many singled Pratt out for elevating the role of goofy sidekick into something more lived-in and substantive. 

The "Jurassic Park" sequels walk a fine line between quality blockbuster cinema and self-aware camp. 2018's "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" falls hard into the latter category as it attempts to incorporate some of the crazier ideas from abandoned "Jurassic Park" projects past. If over-the-top action sequences and references to horror tropes are your thing, you might just love "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom." Critics did not, and though audiences still flocked to the theaters in droves, they too were less than impressed with this fifth effort. 

Claire has undergone a complete personality change. No longer a boss babe, she now heads a PETA-like group dedicated to saving the prehistoric animals, in contrast to Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum returning in a cameo) who argues before Congress in favor of their extinction. Hammond's old partner invites Claire to his mansion where his assistant Eli (Rafe Spall) tricks her and Owen into relocating the stranded dinos from Isla Nublar to the mainland. Eli and his conspirators aren't interested in the animals' wellbeing; they plan to make millions off of them in a secret auction held in the mansion's basement, particularly from the latest hybrid, a stealthy and highly intelligent new species called the Indoraptor that comes combat-ready. 

Of course, the Indoraptor escapes, which turns "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" into what's essentially a haunted house movie, where a genetically modified dinosaur plays the role of ghost or monster. Pratt's Owen has even less to do here; he spends most of his time watching, running, and hiding. The film ends as our heroes make some discoveries about human cloning and set the captive dinosaurs free, teeing up the final installment of the franchise: "Jurassic World Dominion."

2011's "10 years" reunites Pratt with his "Parks and Recreation" love interest, Aubrey Plaza, and teams him up with some of the actors who would go on to become his fellow MCU superheroes, Anthony Mackie and Oscar Isaac. That's fitting, since this mediocre comedy is about a high school reunion. "10 years" stars Channing Tatum (who first produced a short film version of the project to attract funding for this feature) as Jake, a guy attending a party to mark 10 years post-graduation with his girlfriend Jesse (Jenna Dewan) to whom he's about to propose. 

During the festivities, Jake runs into his ex, Mary (Rosario Dawson). As they reconnect, a seemingly miffed Jesse goes back to the hotel. Meanwhile, Jake's former classmates all evaluate how their own lives have progressed (or not) through their 20s. Pratt plays Cully, a bully with a drinking problem who tries and fails to atone for his old ways, all while annoying his wife. Isaac is Reeves, an alum who has since become a rock star thanks to his ballad about the nerdy girl he had feelings for back in school, who's also in attendance. 

Critics gave "10 years" mixed reviews, pointing out that while its characters weren't very multidimensional, it managed to hit the right emotional notes and avoided being overly cliché. However, the few viewers who sought out the movie (which was a box-office bomb, only making about $200,000 in the U.S.) liked it less. 

2016's "Passengers" starred Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence at the height of their fame. Pratt was coming off of "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Jurassic World," while Lawrence had been nominated for four Oscars in six years (she won in 2013 for "Silver Linings Playbook) and was wrapping up the "Hunger Games" franchise. "Passengers" — a glossy, big-budget, prestige sci-fi film — should've been an astronomical success. Instead, it divided critics and audiences like the cilantro of space movies. 

Set in a mid-future dystopia, "Passengers" tells the story of a ship called the Avalon that's carrying 5,000 "colonists" plus some crew members to a new habitable planet that's more than 100 years' journey away. Since the ship's guests would die on their voyage otherwise, they're put to sleep in hibernation pods and are scheduled to wake upon landing. Jim (Pratt) gets woken up early by a crash and is despondent to discover that the Avalon is still a ways out. He lives for a while with a droid named Arthur as company, but when he sees a beautiful woman named Aurora (Lawrence) in a pod, he can't resist the urge to bring her out of hibernation. 

It's that early plot point that was a bridge too far for some viewers. Critics praised Pratt and Lawrence for their performances in what's for much of its runtime a two person show, and the film's production design and score were nominated for multiple awards. However, the on-again-off-again love story that follows Jim's initial unforgiveable act ultimately taints the believability of the movie as much as it does Jim and Aurora's problematic romance. 

In another timeline, "The Tomorrow War" could've been a typical summer blockbuster. It was scheduled for theatrical release when the pandemic upended the industry, then Amazon purchased the rights and released it on Prime Video in July of 2021. It was enough of a hit that it's getting a sequel, and critics were generally kind to Pratt and especially complimentary of his co-star, Sam Richardson. But this militaristic sci-fi franchise starter is a little too derivative to compete with the big guns. 

During the 2022 World Cup, soldiers from 2051 appear on the field seemingly out of nowhere. They warn humanity that, in just a few short decades, terrifying aliens called Whitespikes will kill off most of the Earth's population. They request backup from the past and — in one of many conceits that test the suspension of the audience's belief — the world's nations band together to fight an unseen threat from the future. Warriors go forward in time through a wormhole, but since not many make it back, a draft has to be implemented. 

"The Tomorrow War" is a fine thrill ride from your couch, as long as you don't think too hard about it. The plot is held together by arbitrary rules (soldiers deploy for seven days, most are middle-aged so they don't meet themselves and cause a paradox), and the big twist is predictable to anyone who's ever seen a time travel movie centered around family. The final act veers into absurdity and shoots the premise full of plot holes.