You know the Merc With a Mouth, but have you heard of the teenage totalitarian?
The Big Picture
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The Odyssey
is a dark Canadian series about trauma, existential fears, and teenage dictators, that features a young Ryan Reynolds. - Reynolds’ role as Macro showcases his early talent for blending comedy and drama with a sinister character twist.
- Reynolds’ ability to play tough, sarcastic characters, like Macro, laid the foundation for his future success as an action star.
Ryan Reynolds is an undisputed Hollywood titan. He has firmly cemented himself as a wise-cracking, badass action star, but his origins have much more humble beginnings. Yes, long before he was the Merc With a Mouth in Deadpool, Reynolds played the terrifying teenage Macro in the Canadian fantasy-adventure series The Odyssey (1992-1994). The show is about a boy named Jay Ziegler (Illya Woloshyn), who is driven deep into a coma after falling out of a tree house, and his adventures in a fantasy land called Downworld, where no one ages past 16. Never having heard of adults, the children of Downworld have been divided into tribalistic societies, each with their own distinct appearance and culture, called “Clubs.” The oldest kids rule Downworld as a despotic fascist-type regime led by the devious and cruel General Macro.
The Odyssey (1992)
A comatose boy journeys through a surreal landscape populated exclusively by children after a severe accident. In this strange world where adults are myths and dangers lurk, he must uncover the path to awaken and return to his family, learning profound lessons about leadership and bravery along the way.
- Release Date
- August 13, 1992
- Cast
- Illya Woloshyn , Ashleigh Aston Moore , Tony Sampson , Andrea Nemeth , Mark Hildreth
- Seasons
- 3
What Is ‘The Odyssey’ About?
Canadians of a certain age fondly remember sitting around their collective TV post-school and tuning into the CBC to watch The Odyssey. The dark fantasy series was profoundly Canadian but unique for the network because it was a surprisingly dark show. Here was protagonist Jay Zeigler, lost in his subconscious, trying to find the teenage version of his dead dad, so he can go back to the waking world which he cannot remember. The Odyssey, like Degrassi High, wasn’t afraid to tackle the challenging issues head-on, albeit perhaps in a quaint and hokey Canadian kind of way.
Jay’s journey to find the mysterious Brad, the 15-year-old who “knows everything because he’s 15,” is heartbreaking. Brad also happens to be the name of his father, who disappeared in a fishing accident; the show does an excellent job of exploring the nature of trauma and the kids’ fears of growing up inside this ragged and post-apocalyptic summer camp world inside Jay’s head. Canadian TV shows weren’t afraid to get existential with their audience, even if they were children. While all this is going down, the fascist teenagers in the Tower are plotting to put an end to Jay’s search, fearing that it will destroy the balance of power and bring their rule to an end. And who sits at the head of this decadent and despotic regime, none other than the Jodhpurs-sporting teenage totalitarian, Macro (Reynolds).
Who Was Macro in ‘The Odyssey’?
Macro, Jay’s primary antagonist, tries to prevent the amnesiac hero from reaching consciousness by taking him prisoner. The series is a fantastical allegory about the fear of growing up and is one of Reynolds’s earliest roles. The actor is a far cry from the megastar he would turn out to be, but his acting skills are evident as he casts a dark and foreboding shadow over Downworld. Reynolds’ flair for fantasy, sci-fi and drama are all present in this forgotten Canadian gem, and it is the incubator in which the seed of his talent for the genres would sprout. Macro only makes his appearance late in the first season when Jay finally reaches the Tower, but he sure does make an entrance.
Macro leads a Council, who represent the various factions of Downworld. He is at the head of the military wing and lounges in his elaborate chair, smacking people with a baton and having his nails done. His tone is dripping with his trademark sarcasm as he belittles his underlings and smugly grins with his self-satisfaction about the cleverness of his plan to use Jay. The fear and reverence people seem to have for Macro is terrifying. He’s obviously very powerful; more than that, he loves it for its own sake. Macro doesn’t want to do anything but rule so that he can enjoy himself, and he will do anything to keep his stranglehold on Downworld. He is bereft of any altruism, the jerk from high school who became President and is out to get you. Audiences could see themselves in Jay as just a regular kid going through a hard time, up against a seemingly insurmountable enemy.
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After that, Reynolds pitched eighteen different treatments.
Ryan Reynolds Brings Something Special to Every Role He Plays
What Ryan Reynolds can do, perhaps better than any other actor, is to imbue a sense of the ridiculous with the dramatic. This blending of comedy and terror gives his characters a dynamic which makes even the bad ones likable. As a result, he’s fun to watch in everything he’s in. And while nobody knew it yet, that ability to bend genres to his will was happening right in front of their eyes with Macro. Yes, he was scary, but he was also incredibly vain with his over-the-top uniform with far too many decorations and jodhpurs so large they obstructed his movements. He scared the hell out of kids and yet people couldn’t help but laugh at him, solidifying his presence throughout the rest of the seasons — he even appears as Lee once Jay wakes up from his coma.
Macro is an egomaniac, machiavellian in his tactics and nefarious in his deeds. He holds no real loyalties to anyone, save for himself, and the extreme individualism of the character was entirely at odds with Canadian sensibilities. Reynolds’ flair for the comedic ballooned the character into a type of fascist cartoon, but that’s what made him scary; the character was unable to see just how maniacal and silly he really was. The baby-faced tyrant held a snake-like charm that saw him trying to befriend Jay, to use him to quell the civil unrest brewing in Downworld due to Brad’s absence. But Reynold’s, effortlessly, could slough off the charm, replacing it with petty rage akin to a teenage temper tantrum made all the more terrifying by his ability to command deadly forces. When he learns that Brad is Jay’s father, childish jealousy spills out of him, content to imprison Jay forever if it should come to that, dropping the “hey we’re all friends here” act when his plan to replace Brad with Jay fails.
People just love to see Ryan Reynolds be a badass and crack jokes. It helps if he’s the hero, absolutely. We want him to be a good guy because he is so very likable. But when flipped on its head and that same charisma is applied to a baddie like Macro or, say, Deadpool, who is an anti-hero, it’s an irresistible combination. That comedic edge makes the tough guys more relatable instead of intimidating, and that works for both jokes and plot points in which people may underestimate the character. It’s pretty fun when a guy who talks as much smack as Deadpool beats the brakes off someone and Reynolds is the undisputed master of it. So it would seem Reynolds has a history of playing similar characters, smart-ass tough guys who have the ability to make us laugh and ooh and ahh through his general badassery. He’s so good at it because he has been refining the character since he was a teenager to great effect, a gambit that paid off and catapulted him into stardom.
The Odyssey is streaming on TUBI in the U.S.
This article was originally published on collider.com