Chris Evans is about to debut (in US anyway) his 5th outing as Captain America, Marvel Universe's own personal moral compass. I thought this would be a decent time to look at his 5 best roles because the dude has done more than Captain America and rom-coms.
That said, Captain America is definitely going to be the first one...
Captain America - The Marvel Cinematic Universe
, I named Captain America the #1 performance in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is amazing to think that Evans was so afraid of taking on the character, and I honestly can't think of anyone who could do better. I have already described what makes him great last year and totally plan on doing an entire article about Captain America so I'm just going to save it instead of repeat myself.
In a future where the smartest in the world tried to reverse global warming, they ended up supercooling to an apocalyptic degree. The remaining people exist on a train invented by an eccentric gazillionaire which perpetually drives around the globe. Chris Evans' Curtis is one of the sorry saps at the back of the train forced to live in what is essentially a slum on a train. He subverts what makes his Captain America so special to play this brooding, stone-faced leader of a revolution and punctuates it with a sobbing monolgoue about his past sins that is can't miss.
Sometimes, like in Snowpiercer, the best roles are the ones that subvert what we already know about the actor. Chris Evans is probably best known for his handsome, sarcastic romantic leads, and Puncture needs him to represent that among other things. He plays real life bad boy attorney Mike Weiss, who fought hard for the people that he represented in court. That is where his trademark charm comes in, but Mike was being chased by some serious demons. His drug usage was getting worse and worse, and Evans delivers on that spiral while remaining a likable and ultimately tragic character.
Sunshine is about of space-faring scientists on what will probably end up being a one way trip to reignite a dying sun. It gets a lot of flack for having a textbook slasher climax instead of a more philosophical finale, but I think it works to have a personification of the insanity that the entire crew were giving into. That is, except Mace. Mace was an engineer, who's patience had already run pretty thin by the beginning of the movie. He is forced to go through some mandatory therapy due to an early outburst. The rest of the movie he acts like a blunt, pragmatic soldier-type, making the needs-of-the-many type decisions with a perfect level of confidence and authority.
London pairs Chris Evans junkie, wannabe philosopher with a slick, posh drug dealer played by Jason Statham. The two of them take a big bag of coke and crash the going away party of Syd's ex-girlfriend. They spend almost the entire party in the giant master bath doing blow off clean surfaces and chit-chatting about love, sex, and how they complicate each other. Evans and Statham have great chemistry, and they energize a movie that is essentially just two guys talking and not doing much else. Evans especially commits to the trashy hipster logic behind Syd's views on love that you are almost convinced to come around to his way of thinking.