So it’s come to this—I am sad Brandon Routh is leaving one
of my favorite TV shows.
I’ve hated Brandon Routh as an actor for a long time.
I thought he was monumentally wooden in the lame movie Superman Returns.
Compared to fellow unknown actor Christopher Reeve he was a stuffed Superman
costume without any indication of humor or wit, taking his role sincerely when
playing Superman obviously has to be done with an undercurrent of
skepticism. Anyone who doesn’t see the absurdity of an alien with
God-like powers zipping around in blue tights should not be allowed anywhere
near said blue tights. Incredibly, he won a Saturn Award as best actor
for the role, so obviously my opinion was not unanimous.
He then doubled down on his badness by taking a recurring
role on the television show Chuck, playing a rival for the title character’s
affection for the lovely and lethal CIA agent Sarah Walker. I am NOT one
of the fans who simply objected to him because he was an impediment to the long-awaited
Chuck/Sarah hookup; I understand the desire of the show runners to create
dramatic tension by placing a roadblock in the way of Chuck and Sarah’s
inevitable coupling. I objected to the fact that he was so uncharismatic
that one wasn’t certain exactly WHY Sarah would be interested in him over
adorkable super-nerd Chuck. He was blandly handsome in a Ken doll sort of
way, but again appeared to project no personality or chemistry with his fellow
actors (again, inexplicably, IMDB says he won something called an IGN Summer
Movie Award as “Best Villain” for his work).
I probably expected Brandon Routh to go the way of most
pretty-boy wanna-be actors who disappear after a stint on Baywatch or something
similar. My expectations were thwarted when Routh turned in an amusing
supporting performance in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, one of my favorite films
of this century. He steered into his lack of charisma, playing a
lunkheaded bassist who was the current squeeze of the woman who had dumped the
title hero, Scott Pilgrim. His character punched a diminutive Asian girl
so hard that he knocked the highlights from her hair (really), and then nearly
killed the Scott Pilgrim using his mystical “vegan powers.” Of course he
was ultimately defeated by the title character, but for the first time in my
life I thought that Brandon Routh didn’t suck.
Full reformation of my opinion of Brandon Routh occurred
when he joined DC’s Legends of Tomorrow as Ray Palmer, aka The Atom, a role he
originated on Arrow (a show I started watching but abandoned when I decided
Steven Amell was indistinguishable from a block of wood). The show’s
first season was an unmitigated disaster, but I stuck with it in part because
of Routh’s feckless appeal as a billionaire genius with a suit that allowed him
to shrink in size and who had the outlook of a Boy Scout on strong
anti-depressants. The show did a brilliant job of course
correcting, dropping the Hawk-people (what were they thinking?) and a dull as
dishwater villain named “Vandal Savage” (again, what were they thinking?) but
keeping Routh along with Caity Lotz, Dominic Purcell, Victor Garber, Franz
Drameh, and several other parts that worked.
The show added new characters that meshed with the recurring
ones MUCH better than in the first season, and the character of Ray Palmer
became a reliable beacon of unbridled optimism as well as geeky uber-inventions
and corny humor. At some point around the start of the show’s third
season I realized that I no longer hated Brandon Routh.
Legends of Tomorrow took a major risk in its fourth season
by introducing a new character: Nora Darhk, who was the evil daughter of
super-villain Damien Darhk. The risky part was twofold: a) she became a
love interest for Ray Palmer, and b) she was played by Courtney Ford, Brandon
Routh’s wife. Real-life couples notoriously never have the on-screen
chemistry that they have in real life (anyone remember Tom Cruise and Nicole
Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut?), so the casting was a major gamble.
It was a gamble that paid off (Legends of Tomorrow takes
more high-stakes risks than any other show on television, and it wins an astounding
percentage of them). The slowly-evolving relationship added depth to the
character of Ray Palmer, and once they finally got together (aided
by a magic McGuffin) there was a suitable amount of on-screen sizzle.
So it is with unexpected sadness that I hear the news
that Routh and Ford will be leaving Legends of Tomorrow in
its 5th season. I don’t think this will necessarily
mean an end to the show; the program has been a master class on juggling cast
members in ways that only a time-travelling science fiction show could
do. Also, Routh will definitely not be permanently gone, as word has it
he will put on the blue leotards again to play alternate universe
Superman in the annual DC Crossover Event.
I can’t say that I am looking forward to his next endeavor;
I think the role of Ray Palmer was just so in his wheelhouse that not even
Routh could screw it up. Being on a show with brilliant writing can make
any actor appear good. But Brandon Routh has redeemed himself in my eyes,
so I will not avoid his next TV series just because of his presence.
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