Best & Worst: Friends Movies

The Friend: Courteney Cox

T he Movie: What started out as a quickie horror script scribbled in mere days by Kevin Williamson (because he needed to pay the rent) quickly turned into one of the most profitable scare-flicks of the ‘90s.

Boasting a wit as sharp as the knives used by the slash-happy Ghostface, Scream all but introduced horror to post-modernism (after director Wes Craven gave it a stab with New Nightmare) and inspired a string of mildly diverting copycats.

As catty news reporter Gale Weathers, Cox revels in shrugging off the cosy sitcom aura of Friends and bares her fangs as a snippy busybody who’ll do anything to get the scoop on a breaking story. Yep, she’s an absolute scream.

The Friend: Matt LeBlanc

The Movie: Big budget, effects-infused update of the classic ‘60s TV series – with added A-list star power.

Lost In Space may have grand aspirations (it wants to be the next Star Wars ), but it never truly thrills. It's a strange combination of kiddy-pandering daftness and impenetrable time paradoxes that confuse more than compel.

As swaggering hero Major Don West, LeBlanc is fine, if simply playing a sci-fi version of Joey Tribbiani. Somewhat fittingly, Lost In Space ends up resembling exactly the kind of cruddy B-movies that Joey comically lands in Friends .

The Friend: Lisa Kudrow

The Movie: Oddball comedy in which Kudrow’s floopy Michele gets invited to her high school reunion. Trouble is, she’s still not got a job, and she’s still best friends with her equally unimpressive high school buddy Romy (Mira Sorvino). A quick lie that they invented Post-Its should fix that.

Kudrow isn’t exactly breaking the mould here – Michele could be Phoebe’s nutty, long-lost cousin – but it’s hard to condemn her when she’s just so good at being a weirdo.

Bursting with crazy sidebars and outrageous costumes, Reunion is kind of like the crazy uncle who’s always pissed at the party – he’s daft and entertaining, but you’re still sort of embarrassed about that.

The Friend: Jennifer Aniston

The Movie: A sly, cover-all-audience-bases blend of romcom and action movie, Bounty Hunter fails entirely to capture the potential zing or flash of either genres. Which is a shame, because Aniston and Gerard Butler make for a good pair-up (their combined attractiveness is near blinding).

The premise is silly but has potential, as Butler plays the titular hunter, who’s assigned his ex-wife (that’d be Aniston) as his next target. But unlike, say, Mr & Mrs Smith , Bounty Hunter is at a loss for what to do with its magnetic leads.

Cue endless scenes of bickering, chasing and fighting – all of which go nowhere. Funny, considering we’d go just about anywhere to avoid watching it again.

The Friend: David Schwimmer

The Movie: Bryan Singer’s third feature (after Public Access and The Usual Suspects ) is a chilling if not entirely successful thriller in which a young boy (Brad Renfro) blackmails his neighbour (Ian McKellen) after suspecting him as a Nazi war criminal.

Schwimmer tries to hide behind a moustache as an impotent social worker, but just reminds us of that Friends episode with the prom video in which young Ross sits playing his Casio keyboard.

Of course, in Apt Pupil he's up against the magnetic presence of Ian McKellen, so we’ll cut him a little slack.

The Friend: Matthew Perry

The Movie: One can only assume that Perry rushed into this hideous romcom. When you’ve got Salma Hayek as your alluring potential co-star, though, you can see why he’d jump at the film – despite its hodgepodge script.

Perry plays Alex, who has a one night stand with Isabel (Hayek) in Las Vegas. Three months later, Isabel turns up on Alex’s doorstep pregnant. They decide to get married (as you do). But things get more complicated when they meet each other’s families.

Yeah, it sounds just like Knocked Up , but don’t be fooled by the similarities. Fools Rush In has none of that Apatow vehicle’s charms – especially with Perry basically playing Chandler on the big screen.

The Friend: Jennifer Aniston

The Movie: Aniston makes good by pairing up with influential indie director Miguel Arteta - and in an instant we’ve forgotten all about the romcom fluff she’s been pedalling since the mid ‘90s. Barely cracking a smile, her ‘Rachel hair’ is scraped back into unforgiving ponytails as Aniston breathes snarky misery into supermarket worker Justine.

Married to the doltish Phil (John C Reilly), Justine’s bored. Bored at home. Bored at work. Then she meets passionate young checkout boy Holden (Jake Gyllenhaal), and trips into a fiery affair.

Easily Aniston’s most accomplished screen performance, Good Girl finds the actress being bold and daring for the first time. Outside of her comfort zone, she’s electric as Justine – frumpy, miserable and borderline unlikeable. Ironically, it makes us like Aniston all the more.

The Friend: David Schwimmer

The Movie: A made-for-TV movie, Breast Men has Schwimmer and Chris Cooper re-enacting the story behind the invention of breast implants. And now you’re probably slapping yourself in the forehead at that so-obvious-it-hurts title.

Despite being a production from the usually reliable HBO, Breast Men cranks out its morality like its delivering a sermon from the pulpit.

Far more disturbing (and, yes, uncomfortable) is seeing the distinctly asexual Ross in a room with so many topless ladies.

The Friend: Courteney Cox

The Movie: A sequel to the first Scream was always inevitable – especially as writer Kevin Williamson had a trilogy game plan from the outset. And thanks to Scream 2 acknowledging the perils of sequels and cannily twisting a knife in them, it actually matches its predecessor in smarts and thrills.

It’s not quite scarier, but it certainly has its moments. Returning as the delectably brusque Gale Weathers, Cox is pivotal in one heart-hammering moment as Gale is trapped in a sound booth and stalked by hack-happy Ghostface.

It’s Scream 2 ’s standout set piece (Cox goes from playing comedy to horror to grief all within the space of about five minutes), and the franchise has struggled to capture the same urgent sense of terror ever since.

The Friend: Lisa Kudrow

The Movie: Kudrow pairs off with chick flick queens Diane Keaton and Meg Ryan. They play three wildly different sisters (all blonde…) whose father (Walter Matthau) is on his deathbed.

Stuffed full of silly flashbacks and presenting a lethargic, yawn-inducing portrait of how three siblings all react differently to their father’s impending death, Hanging Up is pure chick flick – but the bad kind.

Though it attempts to mix things up by having much of the exposition take place over the telephone lines, that is exactly the film’s most infuriating conceit – who wants to see people talking on the phone for two hours? Not us, we’re dialling off.

The Friend: Courteney Cox

The Movie: “By the power of Grayskull!” Irrefutably cheesy, shamelessly pinching everything from score cues to costume design from Star Wars, and featuring a meaty Dolph Lundgren as He-Man, Masters Of The Universe is definitely in the ‘so bad it’s good’ category.

Thing is, it’s just so difficult to hate. Sure, the plot’s jump to modern day Earth is a mistake, but we can forgive that in the bony face of Frank Langella’s villainous, Shakespeare-quoting Skeletor. Then there’s Meg Foster as sidekick Evil-Lyn, not to mention some impressive prosthetics for Beast Man and Saurod.

There’s even a role for Cox’s future on-screen mum Christina Pickles (Ross and Monica’s mother in Friends ), who pitches up as the crystal-headdress-wearing Sorceress. As for Cox? She’s given a fluffy backstory involving dead parents, and emotes her heart out, even if she’s ultimately lost amid a flux of more colourful, crowd-pleasing cut-out characters.

The Friend: Jennifer Aniston

The Movie: Really, any one of the numerous romcoms that Aniston’s taken under her wing could be on this list, but for utter triteness and for wasting a stellar cast, it’s got to be this horrible book adaptation.

Aniston is but one of the many A-listers congregated for this lame romcom, getting lost in a sea of shiny white teeth. Ben Affleck, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Connelly and Bradley Cooper all pitch up with their two cents on relationships.

The result is more like a moving version of Grazia magazine than a movie. It was obviously aiming for an old-school ‘50s glamour kind of ensemble feel, but just ends up feeling stretched scarily thin.

The Friend: Jennifer Aniston

The Movie: Clearly indie films is where Jennifer Aniston needs to be. Before she impressed in misery-loves-company The Good Girl , the actress put in a decent turn in this slacker comedy, which is basically hewn from the same bit of cloth.

She’s still playing a waitress, but this time it’s at a TGI Friday-style restaurant that encourages stupid behaviour – like wearing badges to express personality. The real focus of the film, though, is Ron Livingston’s Peter, who’s sick of his office job and plans his escape.

With first-rate observational humour (anybody who’s worked in an office will be groaning “that’s my life” into their popcorn), Office Space is a cult classic – and deservedly so.

The Friend: Matthew Perry

The Movie: How to beef up a horribly barren script? Hurl in a few pratfalls, a dash of mugging and a load of general tomfoolery to make your audience think they’re watching something worthful and – uh – funny.

That’s the thinking behind this paper thin follow-up to 2000’s The Whole Nine Yards . The original was ‘fine’ mostly (not least thanks to Amanda Peet’s great turn as Jill), but this sequel is borderline insulting.

Perry gets the worst of it, lumbered with a stupid plot in which his character has a sudden revelation about a sexual encounter he had while pissed. Again sparring with Bruce Willis, the duo appear to have just turned up because their lawyers couldn’t get them out of the sequel clause. Tragic.

The Friend: Lisa Kudrow

The Movie: Now this is more like it. Kudrow goes plane Jane in this Christina Ricci vehicle, which sees the latter playing volatile adolescent Dedee. She runs away from home and moves in with her gay brother, then seduces his partner.

Brunette, dressed in unflattering togs (Michele would be horrified) and visibly straining to keep her inner weirdo at bay, Kudrow delivers a restrained performance that still manages to be a hoot. She also gets some of the best lines. (“Puh-lease! I went to a bar mitzvah once. That doesn't make me Jewish.”)

The Friend: Jennifer Aniston

The Movie: There’s a reason Jennifer Aniston has stuck so resolutely to romcoms, and that reason is Leprechaun .

Pretty much the only time the actress has strayed outside of her romantic movie safety zone, Leprechaun is a stodgy glitch on her CV that she’s probably convinced herself doesn't even exist.

Aniston plays Tory, who moves to a farm with her father, unaware that an evil leprechaun has been trapped in the basement. Can you guess what happens next? The film spawned six sequels, none of which Aniston graced with her presence. Can’t think why.

The Friend: Courteney Cox

The Movie: “Alllllrighty then!” Released the same year that Friends debuted on the idiot box, Ace Ventura may not have given Cox much of a chance to show off her comedy chops, but the fact that she managed to keep a straight face when confronted with Jim Carrey’s gangly, gurning antics remains impressive.

He’s the world’s only pet detective, enlisted to help find a missing football team’s dolphin mascot. She’s the team’s head publicist, who’s hired Ace to track down said flipperer – and eventually falls for his offbeat charms.

Daft but winsome, it’s an early highlight for both Cox and Carrey.

The Friend: Courteney Cox

The Movie: Scream 2 may have been a superior sequel, but Ms Cox got experience of just how cruddy sequels can be with this follow-up to the much-loved 1985 classic.

Picking up five years after the first Cocoon , a science research team discover one of the Antareans’ cocoons and takes it away for study. Returning to Earth, the Antareans and their human buddies attempt to retrieve the pod before it’s too late.

Little more than a retread of the first Cocoon , The Return at least features some great performances (not least from Cox as Sara), but it has nothing more to add to the tale.

The Friend: David Schwimmer

The Movie: The penguins steal the show, but Schwimmer puts in a memorable vocal performance as wimpy giraffe Melman in this DreamWorks CG animation.

Here the studio are just finding their legs in the world of CG animation. While Madagascar ultimately fails in matching Pixar for story and visual brilliance, it's certainly no Shark Tale , either.

The plot follows four animals raised in New York City Zoo who decide to escape - and end up in Madagascar. As the OCD Melman, Schwimmer is hysterically histrionic and perfectly cast.

The Friend: Matthew Perry

The Movie: Oh dear, Perry’s not had much luck on the big screen, has he? While he went on to earn post- Friends kudos with TV show Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip , he’s fared far worse on the big screen.

Here, he’s trying his hand at yet another romcom (was he taking tips from Jennifer Aniston?). As Dylan, he’s mistaken for gay by a rich businessman who asks him to keep tabs on his beautiful mistress (Neve Campbell) while he’s away.

It’s the same joke that was played far funnier on Friends (everybody assumes Chandler’s gay). By the closing moments of Three To Tango , Perry’s given up pretending he’s playing Dylan and just settles for being Chandler again.

The Friend: Lisa Kudrow

The Movie: The most recent ‘best’ movie starring a Friends actor, Easy A riffs on John Hughes for a restless teen tale based on the novel The Scarlet Letter.

Lady of the moment Emma Stone plays Olive, who lies about losing her virginity and earns a reputation as a slut. Kudrow comes in as Olive’s school counsellor Mrs Griffith, who may or may not be diddling one of the students.

Showing what she’s made of, Kudrow plays off her kooky image to present a distinctly dislikeable character who has basically no redeeming qualities. Not an easy job, but she gets an A for effort.

The Friend: David Schwimmer

The Movie: It’s Matt Reeves’ directorial debut, but there are no stomping monsters or bloodthirsty mini vampires on display in this desperate romantic comedy – even if Reeves did manage to bag the then hot ticket Schwimmer and Gwyneth Paltrow for his leads.

Schwimmer plays Tom Thompson (okay…), who’s asked to be a pallbearer at the funeral of a high school classmate who he doesn’t even remember. Naturally, he says yes.

The Pallbearer wants to be The Graduate so badly you can almost hear Simon and Garfunkel, but instead it settles for an odd indie vibe, screeching from screwball comedy to overly emotional drama without ever pausing for breath.