David Spade is not necessarily a good actor but he is a funny one. This is understandable because he first made his name on Saturday Night Live as a standup comedian. The majority of standup comedians tend to struggle when they are tossed into Hollywood but they keep pushing anyway. This is also understandable. It's an unwritten rule that a standup comedian cannot be a major star unless they act too.
Spade might never win an Oscar or Golden Globe but he never has a shortage of film gigs. He must be pretty content with that. With appearances in over 40 films, his catalog is vast. As a result, it's pretty difficult to pick his best and worst films. Luckily, tomato scores on Rotten Tomatoes make the job easier. Here are his five best and five worst films according to critics.
Best: Light Sleeper (1992) - 87%
David Spade's role isn't a major one here. He's just a crackhead who is conveniently called Theological Cokehead. However, his role is pretty instrumental for the plot which largely revolves around drugs and the effects they have on addicted users.
Light Sleeper follows John Le Tour (William Dafoe) a wealthy drug dealer who caters to Manhattan's elite. John happens to be a recovering addict himself and he sees this business as something he was made for. However, the death of a client almost ruins his business. Light Sleeper is not in the league of Power or Narcos but it's still a fascinating drug story.
Worst: The Ridiculous 6 (2015) - 0%
It should simply have been named The Ridiculous Movie. Thi film was so bad that no single critic liked it. They all unanimously agreed that there was nothing good in it. You have a higher chance of finding something good in the trash can than in this movie.
Fans of serious Westerns like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly must loathe this movie for making a mockery of the genre. It's about six crazy cowboys who discover that one man fathered them all. David Spade as General Custer is one of these guys. The unfunny six then embark on a journey to find daddy and they try to be funny while it. Sadly, the humor only equals that of a class clown.
Best: The Emperor's New Groove (2000) - 85%
Not every actor is made for voice-over work. Some are simply made for the screen while some prefer to only provide their voices. However, a few actors like David Spade thrive in both. It's no surprise that one of his highest-rated movies is an animated one.
The Emperor's New Groove is a surprisingly underrated Disney movie about a spoiled Emperor (David Spade) who is accidentally turned into a llama. Between the kind-hearted peasant that helps him and the evil advisor who is after him, it's a funny story of personal growth, and it's a great film for family viewing.
Worst: Police Academy 4 - Citizens On Patrol (1987) - 0%
This franchise was once good, but this fourth installment buried it completely.
The plot could have been better but they decided to go with this. Lassard, a commandant in the academy, feels that his officers are working too much so he comes up with the dumb idea of hiring civilian volunteers to help them out. The civilians have to be trained of course, and its a mess. Spade has a minor role here as Kyle Rumford, a member of the C.O.P (Citizens On Patrol) program. Sadly, he doesn't save the movie.
Best: Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018) - 62%
Grab everyone you know who is under 10. They are going to enjoy this if they haven't enjoyed it already. It now appears that Spade should actually focus more on voice roles. Here, he is outstanding as the monster Griffin. T.
In the movie, Count Dracula takes a summer vacation from the Transylvania hotel and boards a luxury cruise ship. This is not the horrific Dracula that was once played by Christopher Lee, the famous villain from The Man With The Golden Gun. This is a kid-friendly Dracula.
On the cruise, he is accompanied by other sea-loving monsters and they all indulge in plenty of fun activities like monster volleyball. Dracula ends up falling for Ericka, the captain of the ship but he isn't aware that the ship is actually being commandeered by his enemy Van Hesling.
Worst: Jack And Jill (2011) - 3%
It's shocking that a man who starred in The Godfather appears in this movie. That man is none other than Al Pacino. How did he even sign up? It's a mystery. Jack And Jill is widely considered to be Adam Sandler's worst movie. Sadly, David Spade finds himself here too. He really should hire a professional script analyzer to learn about potential roles before he takes them.
Jack and Jill is about Jack Sadelstein (Adam Sandler), a family man and a successful advertising executive in LA. Jack dreads Thanksgiving each year because his annoying sister Jill always comes to visit. David Spade plays a woman called Monica but he doesn't come close to Madea levels of awesomeness.
Best: PCU (1994) - 47%
Given that one of his best movies has a 47% score, we can safely conclude that Spade isn't loved by critics. He should be friends with Michael Bay so they can curse at all the movie reviewers during their free time. Critical reception aside, PCU is a very entertaining college movie. It's a more satirical version of Animal House and it delivers.
In the film, Jessica Walter is the strict dean of Port Chester University (PCU). She values total discipline and political correctness but she tends to go overboard. The film is about a senior high school student who visits the university one weekend only to discover that university life is far from normal. He finds rival houses fighting and has to learn to adjust to the chaos. David Spade stars as Rand McPherson (David Spade), a leader of one of the houses.
Worst: Grown Ups (2010) - 10%
For a movie called Grown Ups, it has a lot of growing up to do. The humor is only fit for kids. But I guess that was the target audience. David Spade finds himself in Mediocre Land once again when he plays the boring, try-too-hard-to-be-funny Marcus Higgins.
Grown Ups is yet another Adam Sandler movie, and at this point, David Spade should know better than to act alongside Adam Sandler because the results are never good. He deserves better. Basically, the movie is about five former middle school friends who reunite for a July Fourth weekend with their families after their former basketball coach dies.
Best: Tommy Boy (1995) - 42%
Another brilliant comedy that was rated poorly by critics. Tommy Boy was a major hit that turned Saturday Night Live members Chris Farley and David Spade into major stars. Sadly, Farley died a few years later. The film still remains popular among comedy lovers.
In Tommy Boy, Big Tom Callahan (Brian Dennehy) is the owner of an auto spares company who would like his son Tommy Callahan III (Chris Farley) to one day take over the business. However, Tommy is the laziest human on earth. When his father dies, chaos ensues as his assistant Richard (David Spade) tries to help him make sensible decisions.
Worst: The Benchwarmers (2006) - 11%
On the positive side, this is a great anti-bullying movie. Benchwarmers proved that you don't have to counter bullying with violence. You can try smarter ways. However, the film's script simply fell short. Sandler is credited as a producer so that explains it.
In Benchwarmers, David Spade, Rob Schneider, and Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite) star as three older guys who catch some neighborhood bullies harassing a friend's son. They decide to form a three-man baseball team to beat all the best youth teams that mostly consist of bullies. Sounds boring? It is, but the message is positive.