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(1968– ). Canadian actor.
Provided
voice for animated films: Balto (uncredited) (Simon Wells 1995);
"Damnit, Hollywood" (1997), episode of Duckma: Private Dick/Family
Man; "King of the Hill" (1998), episode of The Simpsons; Sinbad:
Beyond the Veil of Mists (Gordon Hunt and Evan Ricks 1999); "Peggy Makes
the Big Leagues" (2000), "Gone with the Windstorm" (2005), episodes of King
of the Hill; Beach Bunny (short) (Bill Kopp, Rich Moore, Dan
Povenmire, and Peter Shin 2004).
Despite all this, however, and realizing full
well that everything I am about to write may need to be thrown away in five
years, I still cannot resist attempting to make sense out of the brief and
bewildering career of Brendan Fraser.
In the course of six months, Fraser starred
in three films, all falling within the scope of this volume, that otherwise
were as dissimilar as films could possibly be. First, in Gods and Monsters,
portraying a paramour of aging film director James
WHALE, Fraser demonstrated that,
properly cast, he can avoid embarrassing himself or his cohorts in a serious
dramatic role—but we had already known that, from his adventures outside of the
genre such as With Honors (1994) and Mrs. Winterbourne (1996).
However, one needs to add, he always seems slightly uneasy in these situations,
sometimes flashing a quizzical grimace that is not quite in character as if to
ask, "Why did they cast me in this film?" And while such a
quality may only add to his charm as a male ingenue, this air of uncertainty
will be less appealing if retained when he ages into more mature roles.
Fraser looked more comfortable in the next
film under consideration, Blast from the Past: portraying the scion of a
deluded family, trapped underground for decades in a bomb shelter, who is
suddenly exposed to the contemporary world, he proved how skillfully he can
play the straight man in a knockabout farce—but we had already known that as
well, from films like Encino Man and George of the Jungle (and we
would learn it again, albeit less enjoyably, from the inferior Dudley
Do-Right). Seemingly unsettled when he is taken seriously, Fraser delights
in being laughed at—a rare and underappreciated talent. (A predilection for
juvenile comedy might also explain his regular willingness to lend his voice to
animated films, even though he cannot find such work either challenging or
lucrative.)
What we had not known, and what his third
film The Mummy proved beyond a reasonable doubt, is that Fraser cannot
function as a persuasive hero in an action film. True, in a popcorn movie
filled with spectacular special effects that made the inept expository scenes
and laughable attempts at character development worth enduring, Fraser's numb
and perfunctory performance was not a grave liability; but sometimes, even a
film driven by stunts and dazzling visual effects will need a leading man who
can convey some conviction and concern about the unfolding storyline, and
Fraser is manifestly not the actor to be called upon in those circumstances. Incredibly,
however, the franchise has survived, with a third installment, teaming Fraser
up with his now-grown son to battle a rampaging Chinese mummy, now in
production. Critical expectations, one might say very mildly, are not extremely
high.
The fact that he has continued to alternate
between these various sorts of projects suggests that Brendan Fraser, while an
appealing figure on the screen, is an actor who lacks self-confidence: rather than
seeking out or nurturing projects that would help him establish an enduring
celluloid persona, he adapts himself to whatever scripts are offered to him,
and he seems effective and visibly at ease only when he is constantly the butt
of jokes, as if he subconsciously accepts that such treatment in such films is
what he truly deserves. My original prediction, then, was that Fraser would
eventually abandon, or be driven away from, his determined eclecticism to
settle into a career as the Leslie NIELSEN of his generation, another performer
who never quite made it as a dramatic actor but blossomed as the stone-faced
centerpiece of inane comedies.
However, writing years after this entry was
first written, I now recognize that I failed to detect another aspect of
Fraser's personality: extreme stubbornness. Even though he is mostly sought out
for, and seems best suited for, inane comedies like Joe DANTE's superb Looney
Tunes: Back in Action, he instructs his agent to keep getting him into
serious films like Crash (2004) and Journey to the End of the Night (2006),
as if still hoping to win an Academy Award against all odds. And all a critic
can do, I suppose, is to accept these quixotic ambitions as a charming quirk
and earnestly hope that he never decides he wants to direct.
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