Ryan Reynolds playing anyone other than Ryan Reynolds is long overdue
‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ is an age-old adage that applies to almost every walk of life in one way or another, but it would be a refreshing change of pace to see Ryan Reynolds do anything other than the tried-and-trusted schtick he’s been leaning into almost exclusively for a decade at this point.
That’s not to say it hasn’t worked, with the multi-hyphenate A-list star, producer, marketing executive, gin magnate, and football team co-owner having diversified his portfolio off-screen while remaining busy in front of the cameras, but familiarity almost always breeds contempt.
These days, if anybody sees Reynolds’ name attached to a film, then they know exactly what to expect. He’ll play a charming, charismatic, and roguish character defined by their quick wits, sardonic inclinations, and habit for a pithy one-liner. That’s all well and good, but there’s a rich vein of dramatic capability that’s remained untapped for way too long.
Any movie that features precisely one character on-screen for the entirety of its running time requires a tour-de-force performance to keep audiences invested and engaged, which is exactly what Reynolds provided in Rodrigo Cortés’ claustrophobic single-location thriller Buried. He played it completely straight, dropped the wisecracking persona completely, and it was by far the best work of his entire career.
In what should have become a recurring theme but didn’t, Reynolds went against type again in Persepolis director Marjane Satrapi’s biting jet-black horror comedy The Voices. In the film, he plays a schizophrenic factory worker who murders a woman and then tries to resist the hallucinatory urges of his household pets to kill again. Once again, he subverted what he became known for, and the results were spectacular.
Reynolds’ most recent credits have come in John Krasinski’s family-friendly fantasy comedy IF and superhero sequel Deadpool & Wolverine, which finds him safely within his comfort zone. The latter does admittedly get a pass of sorts because that’s who the comic book character has always been, but casting a glance over his filmography in recent years hints that maybe he’s not interested in doing anything but playing it safe.
He’s far from the only actor to do nothing but play thinly-veiled extensions of themselves, but the commonality is that even their most ardent fans get bored eventually. Is there anything that remotely differentiates his work in 6 Underground or The Hitman’s Bodyguard from Life or Detective Pikachu, other than the fact they cover action, comedy, sci-fi, and voiceover work? Not really.
What about the stark differences between the protagonists of Free Guy, The Adam Project, and Spirited? Just kidding, they’re pretty much approached the same way, with minuscule adjustments made to fit the parameters of the video game-inspired adventure, time-travelling caper, and musical, respectively. It’s Reynolds being Reynolds, and it’s getting a little repetitive.
There’s a great actor in there somewhere, but it’s been a very long time since that side of him was unleashed. Based on the box office returns and streaming figures, sticking so rigidly to type, he hasn’t yet stagnated or plateaued his standing, but the longer it carries on, the more likely that becomes.
