Editor’s Notes: Keanu opens in wide theatrical release today, April 29th.
Keanu, Jordon Peele and Keegan-Michael Key’s collective big-screen debut, answers the question many, if not most, of the fans of their recently ended TV series, want answered: Can they bring the comedic magic of their half-hour sketch series to a feature-length film? Sadly, the short answer may be no, but the longer answer is far more complicated. For the better part of 35-40 minutes, Keanu: The Movie showcases Key and Peele at their best, skewering stereotypes, knocking down different iterations of toxic masculinity, and delivering the most important element of all, laughs at a steady, consistent clip. They also brilliantly play the genre game, twisting, turning, and subverting the action-comedy genre into almost unrecognizable form. But unfortunately, that’s just the first half of Keanu: The Movie’s 98-minute running time. Once Keanu: The Movie hits the halfway mark, the laughs become too few and far between. Keanu: The Movie also unapologetically embraces the very action-comedy conventions it’s been skewering for the first half.
They also brilliantly play the genre game, twisting, turning, and subverting the action-comedy genre into almost unrecognizable form.
Until then, though, Keanu confirms that Key and Peele have more than enough screen presence and collective charisma to keep moviegoers eagerly engaged in a plot centered around the title character, Keanu, the most adorable kitten put on film (celluloid or digital) who becomes the literal object of desire for Peele’s character, Rell Williams, a not quite down-and-out photographer nursing major emotional hurt after he’s unceremoniously dumped by his now ex-girlfriend. That leaves Rell’s cousin, Clarence (Key), in best friend mode, but before Rell and Clarence can commiserate on Rell’s wounds, Keanu shows up at Rell’s doorstep, a fugitive, if not from justice, then from the big, bad men, the Allentown Boys (also Key and Peele), who tried to abscond with Keanu seconds after shooting up a church turned drug lab. Of course, Clarence doesn’t know anything about Keanu’s past, only that a stray kitten appeared at his doorstep needing love and attention.
Rell doesn’t get to enjoy Keanu’s presence for too long, though. Returning from a night out with Clarence, he discovers Keanu missing, the possible victim of foul play. Rell does what any pet owner would do: He turns to his next-door neighbor, drug dealer, and the blackest white man in Keanu: The Movie, Hulka (Will Forte). Rell’s weed master leads him to Cheddar (Method Man), a local strip club owner, wannabe drug kingpin, and Keanu’s new owner. Rell and Clarence talk their way into Cheddar’s presence by pretending to be the Allentown Boys. Rell just wants Keanu back, setting up an unlikely scenario – in a comedy, the more unlikely, the more divorced from everyday a scenario, the better (usually) – wherein Rell and Clarence agree to lead Cheddar’s team in a major drug sale to a Hollywood starlet, Anna Faris (predictably playing an obnoxiously exaggerated version of herself), before the real Allentown Boys make their inevitable, late-film reappearance to upend Rell and Clarence’s chances of recovering Keanu and escaping Cheddar’s fear-inducing presence with their lives, if not their dignity, intact.
. .. segues into all-action, all-the-time mode after the halfway mark, in large part because it begins to feel too “real,” too detached from everything that preceded the inevitable turn toward comedy-free action.
At least initially, Clarence and Rell represent not-quite polar opposites of the African-American experience (in heightened, slightly unrealistic form, of course). If Hulka is the blackest white man in Keanu: The Movie, then Clarence can be described as the whitest black man. He positively loves George Michael’s post-Wham career, playing Michael’s hit songs on an endless loop in his suburban, soccer mom van. It’s a running joke that inexplicably doesn’t become stale or tiresome, probably because Key, Peele, and their director, Peter Atencio (Peele co-wrote Keanu: The Movie with Alex Ruben), have an intuitive understanding of where and when to drop George Michael into the film. In one highlight, the new, N-word-dropping Clarence manages to convince several gangbangers of George Michael’s street cred. They come over to the George Michael side with relatively little prodding, but that’s par for the semi-subversive course Key and Peele skillfully play with moviegoers: We define culture, white, black, and everything in between, by codes, conduct, and even performance, evaluating a collection of traits and behaviors as authentic (good) or inauthentic (bad).
Both Hulka and Clarence seemingly fall into the latter category, but Clarence’s character also finds inner toughness and strength when he pretends to be an Allentown Boy. As always, however, talking tough, dropping a stream of N-words and mother-f*ckers, inevitably means having to act tough and in Keanu: The Movie, that means racking up an impressive body count, an action-comedy staple that becomes increasingly unsettling as Keanu: The Movie segues into all-action, all-the-time mode after the halfway mark, in large part because it begins to feel too “real,” too detached from everything that preceded the inevitable turn toward comedy-free action. By then, though, Keanu: The Movie has earned so much good will that it’s hard to begrudge Key and Peele turning their characters into certifiable action heroes.
For the better part of 35-40 minutes, Keanu: The Movie showcases Key and Peele at their best, skewering stereotypes, knocking down different iterations of toxic masculinity, and delivering the most important element of all, laughs at a steady, consistent clip. But unfortunately, that’s just the first half of Keanu: The Movie’s 98-minute running time. Once Keanu: The Movie hits the halfway mark, the laughs become too few and far between. Keanu: The Movie also unapologetically embraces the very action-comedy conventions it’s been skewering for the first half.
