Adventureland

Usually, the “and” credit goes to the most esteemed non-leading actor in a film; often it goes to an older venerated thespian. In Adventureland, the honor goes to the young Ryan Reynolds. At first, I was irked by this. In my opinion, his previous body of work did not warrant this position, however I was pleasantly surprised by his role in the film. He plays O’Connell, the often needed mechanic of the titular second-rate theme park. Both the way Reynolds crafts the character, and the way the story reveals him exposes a man who is at times enviable and also absolutely pathetic.

O’Connell is a man who, at first, seems to be the hippest of the hip; the kind of guy to swoon for. He doles out advice to the main character with worldly poise. However, as the fresh out of college lead goes through his coming of age, the film’s perspective on O’Connell changes; he becomes pitiable. Ryan Reynolds’s performance is so precise that it is purely the audience’s informed vantage point that changes their opinion.

Let’s see if Ryan Reynolds’s can convincingly play a mutant this weekend in X-Men Origins