Just take a look at the arc of his career - as a teenager going through an existential crisis in the blackhearted wonder River’s Edge (1986) the affably dimwitted Theodore “Ted” Logan from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) and its sequel the bodaciously supple and yearning FBI agent and surfer Johnny Utah in Point Break (1991) a bruisingly courteous SWAT officer in Speed (1994) the beatific savior Neo in The Matrix (1999) the violent redneck in The Gift (2000) an occult detective radiating self-loathing and suicidal yearnings in Constantine (2005) and of course, the titular tenderhearted and violently dangerous assassin of the John Wick franchise. Instead, he has used his freedom to move on and slowly force audiences to accept him as a real actor.” ![]() His career would have been limited, and thus short lived. This has hurt him, but it has also allowed him to maintain versatility that means more to him than fame. In her tremendous 2007 masterwork The Star Machine, film professor and historian Jeanine Basinger praises Reeves amongst his generational contemporaries: “Reeves is a neo-star fighting the concept of stardom itself, working steadily against persona to the point where no one has a clear idea of who Reeves is onscreen anymore. As I’ve contended in the past, this is a gross misreading of a great actor. (Another sly nod perhaps? While born in Beirut, Reeves - who is of Chinese-Hawaiian and British ancestry - was raised in Toronto.) The actor’s more recent evolution into a meme may flatten his complexities, but it does signal why he has endured all this time, despite the persistent claim that he’s a bad actor, or just a limited one. ![]() Reeves is having a dynamite year with the success of Always Be My Maybe, the outrageously violent John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum, and Toy Story 4, in which he plays Canada’s greatest stunt driver, Duke Caboom. The Keanu of internet memes and viral threads is here, too, in the very fact that he’s playing himself. There’s the impossibly otherworldly Keanu, who says with utmost sincerity, “The only stars that matter are the ones that you see when you dream.” There’s action-star Keanu, who smashes a vase against his own head in a game of Icebreaker and easily puts the jealous protagonist, Marcus (Randall Park), in a headlock - fully committed, physically graceful, and beautifully dangerous. It’s a maniacally delightful performance that both reminds audiences of Reeves’s place in Asian-American Hollywood history and allows him to flex improvisational skills as he cycles through the various masks we have grafted onto him. “I missed your thumbs,” she breathily exhales. After his entrance - a show for everyone in the farcical restaurant Maximal - he slides toward Ali Wong’s celebrity chef Sasha, offering spiritual platitudes in the face of her unfettered lust. ![]() ![]() All eyes gravitate toward the velvet-jacketed figure with striking beauty and prickly charisma. Reeves, playing an outsized version of himself, cuts an imposing figure in his introduction. In his 14 minutes of screentime in Always Be My Maybe, Netflix’s latest rom-com phenomenon, 54-year-old Keanu Reeves - now 30 years into his stardom - skewers and subverts the personas we’ve come to attach to him.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |