Keanu
2016
Cast: Jordan Peele, Keegan-Michael Key, Tiffany Haddish, Method Man, Jason Mitchell, Luis Guzman, Nia Long, Will Forte, Keanu Reeves
Genre: Buddy Action Comedy
Worldwide Box Office Gross: over $20 million
Plot: When the adorable kitten of an L.A. crime kingpin unexpectedly enters the life of two cousins, they will have to go through tough gangs, pitiless men, and ruthless drug dealers who all claim him, to get him back. How hard can it be?
'Short On Laughs, It Loses A Few Lives'
2 guys mascarade as heroes in order to get their kitten back, who has been stolen by some drug dealers. Rell is a stoner, who develops an interest/obsession in a kitten, & of whom he names as Keanu after breaking up with his girlfriend. With his cousin, Clarence, they seek to infiltrate the criminal network, lead by a drug pin lord named Cheddar (Wu-Tang Clan rapper, Method Man), who mistake the pair as killers. The idea almost works, yet sadly, suffice to say, the comedy doesn't always land and is very scattered. Key and Peele were best known for their TV series on Comedy Central, and in Keanu, it is an F-bomb-laden affair as a 90 min sketch but in a feature-length movie format. I went into this film based on the poster and assuming we would get something on the lines of a farce parody on the buddy cop movie formula, but instead, this was a self-referential and self-aware comedy.
It would have absolutely worked to a tee, had the humour and comedy been consistent throughout with some big surprises, LOL or chuckle moments, whereas the story and plot didn't engage me immediately as it should have. Keanu falls between semi-serious and self-aware, yet it isn't long until the duo's parodic wisecracks, as good as it is to have them, the film runs out of energy as it plods along.
What is an extended skit, this is stretched out too thinly, and the problem is when you take something from TV like a sketch piece and essentially peppered gags and don't do anything or much to it to pad it out, sooner or later, 45 mins later, some people will stop watching. The comedy was okay. It riffs and spoofs on action and buddy cop movies, but when it constantly relies on continuous George Michael song references, it becomes so cliched and loses steam.
Patchy, middling and with its pacing issues and runtime at almost 90 mins, this was still watchable for me. But as so-called buddy cop spoofs go, as amicable as it was effort-wise and the last 30 mins were good, I yearn that Keanu had done more to entertain me for me to truly love it. Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key are cut out for the movie world and in comedy films with their screen presence & style: it just needs to be harnessed in better projects that not only showcase their talents but projects with fully developed scripts, humour and characters.
Final Verdict:
It is telling when one is more interested in the kitten than the main human characters, or be it any of the human characters. But if the writers put a little more effort into the story and the comedy was more consistent, I would have had a heap load more fun with Keanu. Part of me was thinking Keanu could have been, ought to have been and might have been in the Bowfinger and/or The Incredible Burt Wonderstone-vein of self-referential, parodic comedy (and movies, in which for me nailed that aspect so well), but for buddy cop movies and whilst it has some good ideas, Keanu got marred and buried underneath the lack of accessible comedy and humour.
Overall:
2016
Cast: Jordan Peele, Keegan-Michael Key, Tiffany Haddish, Method Man, Jason Mitchell, Luis Guzman, Nia Long, Will Forte, Keanu Reeves
Genre: Buddy Action Comedy
Worldwide Box Office Gross: over $20 million
Plot: When the adorable kitten of an L.A. crime kingpin unexpectedly enters the life of two cousins, they will have to go through tough gangs, pitiless men, and ruthless drug dealers who all claim him, to get him back. How hard can it be?
'Short On Laughs, It Loses A Few Lives'
2 guys mascarade as heroes in order to get their kitten back, who has been stolen by some drug dealers. Rell is a stoner, who develops an interest/obsession in a kitten, & of whom he names as Keanu after breaking up with his girlfriend. With his cousin, Clarence, they seek to infiltrate the criminal network, lead by a drug pin lord named Cheddar (Wu-Tang Clan rapper, Method Man), who mistake the pair as killers. The idea almost works, yet sadly, suffice to say, the comedy doesn't always land and is very scattered. Key and Peele were best known for their TV series on Comedy Central, and in Keanu, it is an F-bomb-laden affair as a 90 min sketch but in a feature-length movie format. I went into this film based on the poster and assuming we would get something on the lines of a farce parody on the buddy cop movie formula, but instead, this was a self-referential and self-aware comedy.
It would have absolutely worked to a tee, had the humour and comedy been consistent throughout with some big surprises, LOL or chuckle moments, whereas the story and plot didn't engage me immediately as it should have. Keanu falls between semi-serious and self-aware, yet it isn't long until the duo's parodic wisecracks, as good as it is to have them, the film runs out of energy as it plods along.
What is an extended skit, this is stretched out too thinly, and the problem is when you take something from TV like a sketch piece and essentially peppered gags and don't do anything or much to it to pad it out, sooner or later, 45 mins later, some people will stop watching. The comedy was okay. It riffs and spoofs on action and buddy cop movies, but when it constantly relies on continuous George Michael song references, it becomes so cliched and loses steam.
Patchy, middling and with its pacing issues and runtime at almost 90 mins, this was still watchable for me. But as so-called buddy cop spoofs go, as amicable as it was effort-wise and the last 30 mins were good, I yearn that Keanu had done more to entertain me for me to truly love it. Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key are cut out for the movie world and in comedy films with their screen presence & style: it just needs to be harnessed in better projects that not only showcase their talents but projects with fully developed scripts, humour and characters.
Final Verdict:
It is telling when one is more interested in the kitten than the main human characters, or be it any of the human characters. But if the writers put a little more effort into the story and the comedy was more consistent, I would have had a heap load more fun with Keanu. Part of me was thinking Keanu could have been, ought to have been and might have been in the Bowfinger and/or The Incredible Burt Wonderstone-vein of self-referential, parodic comedy (and movies, in which for me nailed that aspect so well), but for buddy cop movies and whilst it has some good ideas, Keanu got marred and buried underneath the lack of accessible comedy and humour.
Overall:
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