Page 2 of 2

Re: Keanu (2016)

Posted: January 22nd, 2016, 12:49 am
by Atlas Retreat
atilasantos wrote:Cinema is dead :facepalm:
It's must be sad to not have any sense of humor!

This looks very funny! :lol: :clap:

Re: Keanu (2016)

Posted: January 22nd, 2016, 5:02 am
by AsianVersionOfET
This does not look funny. And this is coming from a pretty average/kinda' big Key and Peele fan.

Re: Keanu (2016)

Posted: January 22nd, 2016, 12:24 pm
by Pratham
Cilogy wrote:whoa
ftfy

Re: Keanu (2016)

Posted: January 22nd, 2016, 2:57 pm
by prince0gotham
this is literally the first time i'm hearing about those two

Re: Keanu (2016)

Posted: January 25th, 2016, 3:08 am
by JohnConstantine
prince0gotham wrote:this is literally the first time i'm hearing about those two
You should watch their skits on YT from their show. It's really funny shit.

Re: Keanu (2016)

Posted: February 8th, 2016, 9:06 am
by Panapaok

Re: Keanu (2016)

Posted: March 15th, 2016, 6:30 am
by anepicmoviereviewer
Work in progress screened as SXSW -
Key and Peele reteam on the big screen with this lamer-than-expected feline-felony action-comedy.

A two-hour online cat-video binge would yield as many “awws” and probably far more laughs than “Keanu,” an initially amusing but fatally overstretched action-comedy that marks a lamer-than-expected big-screen outing for Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele following the conclusion last year of their frequently brilliant cable series. Enjoyable for a good 15 minutes or so, mostly due to the scene-stealing powers of the adorable, much-coveted kitty whose name gives the movie its title, this is otherwise a stale, repetitive effort whose one-joke premise — two suburban buddies forced to pass themselves off as gangsters in a grimy underworld where they clearly don’t belong — never achieves comic liftoff, much less the richly subversive dimensions typical of Key and Peele’s best work.

The Warner Bros./New Line release debuted as a “work-in-progress” at SXSW ahead of its planned April 29 release, though it would take more than a few technical tweaks to significantly improve what feels, at the moment, like 100 minutes of hit-or-miss comic purr-gatory. That the movie reteams a number of collaborators from Comedy Central’s “Key and Peele” — including director Peter Atencio and screenwriters Peele and Alex Rubens — would seem to bear out the notion that their distinctive brand of double-edged satire is best served and consumed in five-minute sketches. “Keanu,” by contrast, is one flabby tabby that seems to be overstaying its welcome at the half-hour mark, and leans heavily thereafter on over-the-top violence whenever it’s clear the jokes aren’t landing.

That tendency is apparent in the opening sequence, in which the notorious Allentown brothers (imagine darker, longer-haired, more offensive versions of the Salamanca cousins from “Breaking Bad”) stage a bloody attack on a church where drugs are being secretly manufactured. The lone innocent bystander is the aforementioned kitten, who through some miracle of CGI rendering manages to survive, dodging bullets left and right in slo-mo, and even winning over the brothers’ cold, black hearts before escaping and making its way to the suburbs of Los Angeles. There, the tiny furball winds up on the doorstep of Rell (Peele), a pot-smoking underachiever who, having just been dumped by his girlfriend, embraces the kitten as a divine offering and christens it Keanu.

And why not? Much like the actor whose name he borrows, kitty Keanu makes an effortlessly expressive camera subject and requires no dialogue — only a nimble physicality and a series of cute, quizzical reaction shots — to thoroughly magnetize the screen. Further cementing the connection, the movie is intended in some ways as a parodic riff on “John Wick,” the thrilling (and soon-to-be-sequelized) 2014 action film in which Keanu Reeves avenged the murder of his own beloved pet. Audiences familiar with Key and Peele’s pop-cultural savvy will be unsurprised by the various on-screen allusions to crime thrillers like “Heat” and “New Jack City,” plus throwaway comic references to “Fargo,” “The Shining,” “Crimson Tide” and “Point Break” (all of which figure into one of the movie’s better visual gags).

The movie under scrutiny, alas, seems unlikely to ascend to the level of even a minor classic. The best scenes are those of Keanu bonding with his new owner, Rell, and his best friend, Clarence (Key), a family man whose wife and daughter are conveniently sent out of town for narrative purposes. When Keanu goes missing in a burglary one night, Rell becomes hellbent on getting him back and, together with Clarence, beats some helpful information out of his in-the-know drug dealer (Will Forte in dreads). From there, the duo make their way to the strip-club hangout of the notorious 17th Street Blips (“the ones who got kicked out of the Bloods and the Crips”), led by a formidable thug named Cheddar (Method Man). Sure enough, Cheddar promises to give back the purloined puss if these two self-styled heavies join his crew and help them out with some of their dirty work.

Key and Peele’s signature talent for tweaking and exploding racial stereotypes gets a moderate workout here, as their characters are forced to ditch their plain-vanilla manner of speaking and load up on N-bombs and 12-letter expletives. But under the weight of the pro forma shootouts and car chases that ensue, all the code-switching culture-clash comedy feels weak and belabored here — particularly a running gag involving Clarence’s efforts to sell the hip-hop-loving Blips on the paler charms of George Michael. (Presumably the studio paid a pretty penny for the rights to “Father Figure,” given how often it surfaces on the soundtrack.) Still, the leads remain masters at mining improvisational gold from even the thinnest material: Peele can register panic in a few hilariously shifty eye movements, and the motormouthed Key retains his flair for both the over-the-top pronouncement and the deadpan non sequitur (“Wordness to the turdness,” he notes in a failed attempt at gangsta speak).

There are a few standouts in the supporting cast as well, including Tiffany Haddish as the lone female Blip (who of course must shoulder the burden of Rell’s emotional baggage), plus a delightfully self-mocking cameo from an actress who, in the interests of preserving one of the film’s few legitimate pleasures, shall remain nameless here. Ditto the actor who does the kitten’s very Reeves-like voice in one bizarre hallucination; suffice to say that, as game imitations go, it’s not half bad. “Keanu,” alas, is another story. If only the creatives involved had followed their choice of subject matter to its logical conclusion, they might well have realized the ideal format for their story wasn’t a movie but a meme.
http://variety.com/2016/film/festivals/ ... 201728870/
Exploits some but not all of the duo's strengths.

Key and Peele leave cable TV behind for a big-screen walk on the wrong side of the law.

A tale of code-switching, the enduring appeal of George Michael's Faith and a feline who is all kittens to all people, Peter Atencio's Keanu marks the first big-screen vehicle for Comedy Central sensations Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. Playing middle-class cousins forced to impersonate gangsters so they can rescue the movie's eponymous pet (what do you mean you don't follow that logic?), the actors make the transition with ease in a consistently funny action-comedy. This may not be adequate compensation for the end of their series, which gave them so many more opportunities to try on new personalities and take one-gag ideas for a spin, but it will delight the show's fans while winning over others unlucky enough never to have seen it.

The actors do, in fact, get to play two extra roles here. They enter the film as a pair of "phantom" drug dealers from Allentown, who shoot up a rival druglord's operation in a Carmina Burana-blasting sequence that could easily have been a Key & Peele parody. During the mayhem, we witness the escape of the victim's pet: a tiny gray-and-white kitty so precious that even a hypothetical, couldn't-be-real movie critic with a deep-seated dislike for cats would find him adorable. The kitten scampers across L.A., winding up at the doorstep of Rell (Peele), who has been in a heartbroken stupor since his girlfriend dumped him. Suddenly, life has meaning again. Naturally, Rell names his savior Keanu.

Two weeks later, Keanu vanishes in a break-in. (In a jab at film conventions typical of these comedians, the sky erupts with rain just in time for Rell to find the cat gone.) Rell and his family-man cousin Clarence (Key), whose wife and daughter are gone for the weekend, set out to find the cat they're sure has been kidnapped.

Which is less likely: That the men go to a rough-part-of-town strip club expecting to find Keanu, or the cat is there — renamed New Jack and now doted on by Cheddar, a drug merchant played by Method Man? Though they enter the club wearing their dorkiest duds, Clarence and Rell try to fit in with thugspeak and puffed-up posturing. They claim to be the Allentown assassins when the opportunity arises, and stumble into an arrangement that could only make sense here: If they go out on a drug deal with this crew, they'll be given New Jack as a gesture of respect.

Long before the men have run out of funny ways to flub the epithet-laden slang they're trying to recreate based on movies they've seen, Clarence and Rell are neck-deep in actual crime. While making a delivery of Cheddar's new drug (called "Holy Shit," it makes you feel "like you're smokin' crack with God"), they find themselves at a movie star's home and wind up leaving with blood on their hands. (Let's not spoil the surprise cameo, but her performance is enjoyably deranged.) They also leave their new crew changed in a way few viewers will be able to predict.

Getting Keanu back can't be this simple, and it isn't. The kitty has won hearts all over this City of Angels, and our newly emboldened (if not exactly toughened) heroes will stare death down, or more likely cower before it, a couple more times before this quest is complete. Tragically for Key & Peele fans, none of their daring feats require cross-dressing. That's an oversight that simply must be corrected in the pair's next feature.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review ... iew-874954

Re: Keanu (2016)

Posted: April 17th, 2016, 2:15 pm
by Echovoid_52
I was fortunate enough to meet and interview Jordan Peele and Method Man, which you can read here:

http://www.zekefilm.org/?p=19327