My Weird Theory on Ryan Reynolds

Ryan Reynolds in The Green Lantern

Try as I might, I have trouble shaking this supernatural feeling whenever the concept of Ryan Reynolds comes up. By some mysterious reason, I do believe that we're living in an alternate timeline for his career. What do I mean? Let's start with the obvious. The man is clearly charismatic and has way more personality than actors his age normally do. Yet, you look at his recent track record, and there's always a sense that the film is letting him down. Nobody can deny that he deserves to be the cocky superhero we deserve in films like The  Green Lantern and this week's Deadpool. Yet, they always feel false. While it sounds crazy, I am dedicating this column to the strange phenomenon I feel of experiencing a literal otherworldly version of Reynolds. 

I am talking about what can be described as Bizarro Reynolds. To summarize, the Superman comics feature a character who is "Opposite Superman" essentially named Bizarro. If applying this colloquialism to Reynolds, you can begin to understand. You see, there's something refined about Reynolds the actor that should definitely work a lot better than it does. Yet he doesn't have much of a box office track record to cull from. He has the ambition to make great movies, and not just in the way that Nicolas Cage mugs for the camera and makes awful movies tolerable. You see, there's this sense in watching Reynolds and seeing what he's going for, and noticing that nobody else is going there.

In this case, Bizarro is short for "good." Good being where his strange adventures lead to something that is actually accessible to audiences in the ways that cinema is supposed to be. I'll be honest that while I like the guy's charisma, he has rarely impressed me, notably in the past decade. He was good in Adventureland, but even that was a minimal role that didn't require his familiar cool guy lead actor shtick as more than an intimidating boyfriend role. 

If you compare that to his other work, you begin to see cracks in the Bizarro mold. The Green Lantern seemed like a compelling character for him to take on, yet he was undermined by bad special effects and a problematic story. It is arguably one of the few lexicon punchlines for "bad superhero movie." You know what else is? X-Men: Origins - Wolverine, which was so bad that Reynolds purposely sought out to make a more faithful version of his character (Deadpool). Voila! Here we are about to see what that means in a film whose budget is relatively low for a superhero film and whose frat boy antics have made it an easy target for the critics. 

I wouldn't call any of these movies great. Even in what could arguably seen as his breakout role (or at least his initial career defining moment) in Van Wilder, he was giving his all to lowbrow humor that is not on par with National Lampoon's peak. There's scenes involving pastries that are too foul to get into here. Of course, actors have done worse for early gigs. Yet it seemed like he was poised to be the next big thing for awhile there, doing mainstream movies like Just Friends and The Proposal. They were enjoyable, but it sadly was more reflective of his culturally relevant peak. The prime roles stopped coming in so frequently, and he was just a pretty boy with a strange career path.

Of course, "pretty boy with a strange career path" is a little more common nowadays. One can look at fellow Ryan in Ryan Gosling, who started in The Notebook before going on to make his directorial debut with the David Lynch/Terrence Malick/Nicholas Winding Refn hybrid Lost River. It is by no means as accessible as his early work, but his brief dive into pulpy fare like Drive and Only God Forgives showed he was wanting to be more than pretty boy (though he did return to "normal" cinema with The Big Short). In a sense, I get the vibe that Reynolds also wants to be definitive in that way after being let down by both DC and Marvel movies.

One could easily see this in the film that best depicts the Bizarro theory. Last year saw the release of The Voices, which was (stick with me on this) a film in which a man is driven to murder by his talking animals. It is surrealism that compliments his natural cool; though the film eventually dives into the problematic balance of psychopathic tendencies and sympathizing with the mentally ill. In a better world, this dark comedy would work a lot better and be a little less insistent on the latter. After all, Anthony Perkins in Psycho is never given that sympathetic moment. He's just crazy and seen as a threat. Even in what should've been Reynolds' most strange role, there's a screenplay undermining his gifts.

Maybe supernatural is just my form of wishful thinking, but I do believe that there is a world where these ambitious movies actually turn out rather well. I mostly say that because I like Reynolds and feel like there's something being sabotaged out of him by his collaborators. Save for Buried (which is an entire film based around him lying down), there isn't much that properly shows this. In the film, its claustrophobia is perfectly done by the director while his neurotic need to get out adds more tension. It's pretty impressive how well the film works, given its limited space. Still, it doesn't make sense why this entry escaped the Bizarro Reynolds while equally compelling titles miss out.

I do want great things to come of Deadpool, which I haven't seen. However, this timeline of Reynolds is particularly bleak and not willing to reward him for great work. Adventureland failed because it was improperly labeled as "the next Superbad." Buried was too high concept to ever be a box office hit. Deadpool feels like the one hope that maybe things will pan out for him with a character that best suits his needs. That is, if the writing doesn't get in his way again. I want him to be seen as a good actor and not the one constantly undermined by his projects. 

So, what is the point of this piece? I guess it's mostly to talk about how underrated Reynolds is. He gives his all, but he never gets credit because, frankly, not a lot of his films are that good. I want to believe in him, but that would involve noting The Green Lantern as a misfire and that his track record for superhero films are already 0 for 2. Maybe this film will change that. I don't know. All I know is that there's probably a better world for Ryan Reynolds out there, and I wouldn't mind seeing the versions of his movies that work. It would be quite something to behold.