Ryan Reynolds

Green Lantern (2011)

ByChristian Sauvé 2011-06-172011-11-20 Movie Review

(In theaters, June 2011) Every so often, a film reminds me that I’m fast aging out of the coveted male-geek’s demographic segment… and makes me grateful for that. So it is that I come out of Green Lantern wondering why that movie even exists. My tolerance for comic-book mythologies has never been particularly high, and seeing the Green Lantern universe on-screen only highlights how profoundly silly it is, even by comic-book standards. Here, the accumulated weight of decades of backstory abruptly presented on-screen never goes beyond the simply ridiculous. (Was it really important to learn that practically all characters in the film were grade-school buddies?) By the time we’re flying across the galaxies, discussing the yellow power of fear and fighting threats that unfortunately take the form of a skull over liquid-brown tentacles, the whole Green Lantern shtick is so far removed from human concerns that the film practically degenerates in nonsense. Few of the many people writing the script apparently stopped to ask why audiences should care. Little of the blame over the film’s lack of success should go to Ryan Reynolds, whose cocky charm prevents the film from sinking further into irrelevancy. (It’s also awesome to see Angela Bassett on the big screen again, even in such a small role.) On the other hand, Reynolds’ screen persona is so self-assured that the film is never believable when it questions the character’s lack of courage: Green Lantern’s annoyingly familiar coward-to-hero dramatic arc never gets going, let alone concludes satisfactorily. The dull script occasionally gives birth to a few well-handled scenes (mostly thanks to director Martin Campbell’s touch when it comes to action sequences), but the overall impact is muted. There’s also something slightly off with the special effects, although this ties into the whole “let’s go cosmic without making you care for it” problem. Clearly, I’m not as good an audience for comic book movies as I used to be when I can’t be bothered to say nice things about average efforts like Green Lantern. Ultimately, it may have more to do with the film’s point: Is it using comic-book mythology to talk about something else, or is it simply content to regurgitate the mythology on-screen, without caring if it has any real-world relevance?

Movie Review

Waiting… (2005)

ByChristian Sauvé 2011-02-132014-10-30 Movie Review

(On DVD, February 2011) There’s been a welcome eclipse for gross-out comedy since the turn of the century, and Waiting is enough to remind us that even a foul-mouthed slacker comedy can dispense with references to genitalia. But since one of the first significant laughs of the film comes from the line “If you want to work here, in this restaurant, I really think that you need to ask yourself one simple question: How do you feel about frontal male nudity?” it’s not as if we haven’t been warned. The nominal plot engine is how a slacker-with-prospects (played by Justin Long) comes to reconsider the time he has spent working at the local “Shenaniganz” chain restaurant outlet. But the ensemble casts brings together a bunch of oddball characters all having their own fun. Ryan Reynolds is the most compelling as a hilariously deviant waiter who’s seen everything: It’s a scum-ball character, but he plays it with a winning smile and the film weeks weaker during its third act when it has to spend time away from him: few other actors could have earned such sympathy with that role. Luis Guzman is another highlight as a restaurant worker obsessed with his own kind of fun and games. Chi McBride, Alanna Ubach and Vanessa Lengies also make an impression in smaller roles, but everyone has their role to play in making sure that this workplace comedy ends up clicking. Never mind the inevitable spitting-in-food scene (whose best laugh comes from the relatively innocuous “We almost had to switch to the ten-second rule.”): there’s more fun to be had in the acerbic repartee between workers and the blank-faced realization that much of the served food in America is handled by people waiting for a better life. The two-disc DVD seems ridiculously loaded with extra features given the triviality of the film itself, but they’re good for a few extra laughs.

Movie Review

Adventureland (2009)

ByChristian Sauvé 2011-01-292011-12-10 Movie Review

(On DVD, January 2011) As far as nostalgic coming-of-age comedies go, Adventureland is a bit better than the average. Featuring post-teenage characters trying to figure out life from the vantage point of awful summer jobs, this is a film that exceeds expectations while paying homage to familiar material. Set in 1987, the story centers around an intellectual college-age character forced to take a job at a local amusement park, where he meets radically different people and learns a few things about life outside school. To its credit, the film understands that characters and actors are the bedrock on which this kind of small-scale drama fails or succeeds, and the script does well in establishing people with whom we’d want to spend 90 minutes. The film is billed as a comedy, but it’s more affectionately romantic than overly funny –and it features a few plot points played differently than in other similar films. Seeing Adventureland in early 2011 is already a different experience than upon its release in 2009, if only because its leads actors have been in many high-profile projects since then. Jesse Eisenberg’s usual nebbish air works well here, whereas Kristen Stewart keeps playing “wounded” effectively and Ryan Reynolds is willing to let go of his winning persona to expose a deeply flawed character. Writer/director Greg Mottola manages to deliver a retro reminiscence that doesn’t feel of interest solely to people of that time: The result may not be a barrel of laughs, but it will leave you smiling. The DVD features a few extras, the best of which is a chatty commentary by director Mottola and star Eisenberg that starts out feeling meaningless, but eventually reveals a lot about the film’s autobiographical content, low-budget film-making and on-set shooting details.

Movie Review

Buried (2010)

ByChristian Sauvé 2010-10-082011-01-06 Movie Review

(In theaters, October 2010) Anyone who admires a bit of cinematographic audacity should flock to see Buried, a minor tour-de-force in thriller moviemaking. It has one rule, and it’s daring: The entire film features one character, stuck in a coffin. There are a few refinements, including a high-tech smartphone, but that’s essentially it. Not cutaways to outside shots, no flashbacks, no fantasy sequences. At most, there are a few bright lights and cuts to the phone to show some video. As a device, it’s remarkably effective at leashing us alongside the character as he attempts to understand what’s happening to him, and contact the outside world to help him get out of there. Claustrophobic to the extreme, Buried has the luxury to fully explore its options, milk its premise for all it’s worth and create a deep sense of unease for its audience. As the quasi-sole actor in the film, Ryan Reynolds is up to the mesmerizing nature of the premise, and easily holds the audience’s interest throughout the experience. The film is more interesting for longer than anyone would expect, in no small part due to Chris Sparling’s clever script and Rodrigo Cortés’s inventive direction. Low-budget but high-impact, Buried may falter a bit during an obvious and disappointing climax, but otherwise escapes judgement to become a pure cinema experience.