You know that you’ve made it in Hollywood when you can just start to play yourself on the biggest screen, while being one of the highest paid actors. While some like Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Cruise seem to be able to do that and make good movies a majority of the time, Ryan Reynolds is more on the opposite end of the spectrum. His sarcastic schtick of playing a character who always needs to have the last word or joke, who is simultaneously in on the joke. There is no better a look at this other than his iconic turn as Deadpool, whose three-quel comes out in theaters this upcoming weekend. And the contrast between Deadpool and its sequel Deadpool 2 is at least for me, when Reynolds schtick works and when you are just waiting for the credits to roll in between being barraged by jokes. I like the first Deadpool, his jokes hit at least some of the time, and the movie actually has some heart to it, which is key for Reynolds and getting his movies to work. Meanwhile the sequel losses all of that heart to me and is nothing more than a chore to watch. So the question remains on whether the new one will be more like the former or the latter. I’m holding out hope for the former, but before we even get to that, let’s take a look at some of the high and lows of Ryan Reynolds pretty long career.
The High’s
It would probably go without saying but the biggest achievement in Reynolds career on the silver screen is the aforementioned Deadpool. First appearing as the Merc with a mouth in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. That movie is pretty bad, and they write a pretty bad Deadpool to appear in it, at least compared to the one we would get a few years later. It was a long push after that for Reynolds to get the character to the big screen, including someone leaking test footage to get the court of public opinion on the side of making the movie, and the rest is history. On top of it being Reynolds most successful movie, it would also probably be the passion project on Reynolds filmography. But Deadpool is such an easy and basic answer, so let’s try to find another career high for Reynolds.
Reynold has some charming rom com in the early 2000’s that sort of got his career going. But in between X-Men Origins and his Deadpool standalone movie in 2016, he had a pretty rough go of it (more on that later). Shocking as this may seem to some readers, Reynolds does have a critically acclaimed A24 movie in that span to save him from probably becoming that straight to DVD actor. That movie is Mississippi Grind, where Reynolds gets to play a wise cracking character that he is now so famous for. It is a lot like a really good movies from the 70’s called California Split, where Elliott Gould plays the wise cracking character for that film. And that is who I would say Reynolds has modeled his career the most after. But Reynolds is legitimately good in this movie, and the movie is likewise a good and fun watch. While when he was signing up for projects back then, he probably didn’t see it that way, but the movie at least in hindsight looks like a lifeline to the actor during the lowest part of his career.
Then a year or so later he gets Deadpool, and that does what it does at the box office, and Reynolds goes on to be one of the bigger box office stars since. Movies to follow like Life, Detective Pikachu, Free Guy, and the recent IF all did pretty good at the box office and with audiences. But in an alternate world where Deadpool never gets made, a movie like Mississippi Grind is probably the reason Reynolds would still be working today.
The Low’s
This is not going to be the answer for the low point of Reynolds career, but I just want to say Red Notice is truly, truly terrible and if not for a serious rough patch, would be the low point of most actors career. But as discussed Reynolds had a real, real tough time in the early 2010’s not just with critics, but also with audiences. Two of the biggest box office bombs in recent memory Green Lantern and R.I.P.D. are the type of movies that are career enders. Green Lantern supposed to kick of DC’s cinematic universe and was grounded before it even took off due to the movie just getting absolutely panned. A few years later getting to make another big action movie, this time with Jeff Bridges, and that falling even harder on its face just had to be tough for Reynolds. If you look at some of the stuff after that, it is a lot of the kind of straight to DVD action movies that you saw some other big stars of once upon a time making.
But even if some of his movies might not be for me, I have to respect the hustle and perseverance of Reynolds to keep going. And keep going he has, as he is now one of the safer bets when making a theatrical or streaming movie to get a lot of eyeballs on it, regardless of quality. And that is the sign of a true movie star, it is hard to get audiences to watch something for a good movie, let alone some of the more disappointing movies Reynolds has. He has become a true movie star and now will have the biggest opening of his career as his Deadpool teams up with Wolverine and is folded into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. I do have high hopes for the movie, especially after the heart the last trailer seemed to show. But regardless Reynolds will be laughing all the way to the bank as soon as the movie opens Thursday.
THANK YOU for reading this article and sticking by me through the good and the bad articles. I’ll try to get another article out this week, as there is another pretty iconic actor appearing in Deadpool & Wolverine, and we just did Deadpool so I’ll leave it to you to figure out who I could be talking about.