Movie Review John Wick Chapter 4

John Wick Chapter 4 (2023) 

Directed by Chad Stahelski 

Written by Shay Hatten, Michael Finch 

Starring Keanu Reeves, Ian McShane, Lance Reddick, Donnie Yen, Laurence Fishburne, Bill Skarsgard 

Release Date March 24th, 2023 

Published March 24th, 2023 

John Wick Chapter 4 wastes no time in getting our favorite killing machine into action. After a brief introduction to where John's been hiding since we last saw him, action shifts to the Middle East where John Wick, in full black suit in the desert, is killing people while riding on horseback. The scene is key first for getting John Wick into action mode and for giving him a key piece of information. As John executes a nameless baddie, he's informed that the only peace he shall ever have will come in death. This sets up the plot of the movie: Will John Wick live or die? 

The plot is driven by John Wick's continuing desire to be allowed to live a normal life. He just wants a dog and a house and a muscle car for a quiet retirement. Unfortunately, the many, many people John Wick has killed since he took vengeance over the murder of his beloved dog, means that John may never stop being pursued by killers eager to grab a 20 plus million dollar bounty on his head. That bounty comes courtesy of a mysterious cabal known collectively as 'The Table.' You can assume that the table is much like the one in Godfather 2 where the heads of families sit and carve up portions of the world. 

Thus, John Wick's task, though seemingly impossible, is to kill his way through the table. Thankfully, his efforts thus far have led the leaders of the group to consolidate power inside one man, The Marquis (Bill Skarsgard). Kill the Marquis and John Wick will earn his freedom from the table. Naturally, this task is more complex than simply killing one man. Standing in John Wick's way is an old friend, a man chosen by The Marquis as his proxy in any direct combat with John Wick. That man is Caine, the blind master, played by Donnie Yen. John Wick and Caine have been friends for years but with the life of Caine's daughter hanging in the balance, the blind master has no compunction about killing his longtime friend. 

I love the lore of John Wick. I love how the universe maintains a very specific and yet uncomplicated logic. In this universe, there are suits that are made of Kevlar, these suits have an almost magical quality. They make the wearer impervious to most weapon attacks. Getting thrown off a roof, shot, or tossed down some stairs are things that can slow someone down. But, if you are wearing a Kevlar suit, you are protected from serious impacts, meaning bones won't break, and bullets may collect on the surface but not penetrate. A sword or a knife may still be an issue. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review: Destination Wedding

Destination Wedding (2018) 

Directed by Victor Levin 

Written by Victor Levin

Starring Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves 

Release Date August 31st, 2018 

Published August 31st, 2018 

Destination Wedding stars Keanu Reeves as Frank and Winona Ryder as Lindsey, a pair of mismatched wedding guests. Frank’s brother is getting married in San Luis Obispo, a piece of information the filmmakers feel is important for us to know for some reason. Frank hates his brother and based on the evidence of the movie, he hates pretty much everyone so Frank setting aside special hatred for someone is notable. 

Lindsey, meanwhile, is Frank’s brother’s ex-fiancee. She accepted an invitation to this wedding some six years after Frank’s brother dumped her on the eve of their wedding. She’s come to San Luis Obispo in search of closure and acceptance and the ability to move on with her emotional life. And, she might be insane. The movie doesn’t deal with this fact directly, but Winona Ryder plays the character with some sort of undefined mental deficiency that, perhaps, is meant to be comedy. 

Frank’s main trait beyond extreme misanthropy is his habit of hocking phlegm. Yeah, this is a fun trait to give a character. Our introduction to Frank is him repeatedly and loudly attempting to clear his sinuses. It’s apparent that the movie thinks this is either charming or funny as they keep having him do it, multiple times throughout the movie. Somehow though the funny part of the hocking didn’t translate to those of us in the audience, it remains solely in the imagination of Keaun Reeves and writer-director Victor Levin. 

Keanu gets off easier than poor Winona Ryder who is forced to play Lindsey as what I assume is the victim of an off-screen head injury. Our introduction to Lindsey is her breathing heavily onto a dying plant. She does this and chants ‘come on photosynthesis’ and we are supposed to laugh I suppose, rather than cringe which my body did in instinctive sympathy for an actress I have always very much liked being made to look silly in a very unfunny fashion. 

Once Frank and Lindsey meet and find themselves repeatedly thrust together as the only singletons at this destination wedding, they begin to talk and immediately hate one another. The first quarter of this blessedly short 80 minute feature is Ryder and Reeves insulting one another in the most hateful and obnoxiously unfunny fashion. Imagine being trapped in a small space with a pair of obnoxiously miserable people and you get a sense of what watching Reeves and Ryder interact in Destination Wedding is like. 

I’m trying hard to imagine what either of these talented people thought would come of this unfunny, genuinely mean way their characters interact in this movie. I assume they were aware they were making a romantic comedy and not the prequel to a violent revenge movie, but I can’t be sure. Dialogue that is meant to be savagely misanthropic comes off as merely faux miserable ranting from characters we can’t stand and are yet the only characters in this movie. There are no other characters, just Lindsey and Frank the whole time. It's like being trapped in an elevator with relatives you hate but are too polite to scream at. 

When the love story began to unfold in Destination Wedding, I was dumbfounded that anyone thought these characters were capable of such a turn. Ryder and Reeves have established both of these hateful, obnoxious, miscreants as people who are more likely to commit murder-suicide than fall in love and yet we have to suffer listening to them bond over how they hate other people more than they hate each other so they must be good together. 

As the 'romance' progresses the two have one of the worst, unfunny, funny love scenes I have ever seen. Some of the hilariously funny dialogue includes Ryder telling Reeves that he looks like he's about to vomit on her. This happens during the love scene. Eventually, the romance progresses to a genuine and earnest moment when our head injury victim, Lindsey says, without a hint of irony or sarcasm, "what if our real destination was each other?" Now, I'm the one who looks like he might vomit. 

When I saw that Destination Wedding starred Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder I was sure it couldn’t be that bad. Oh how wrong I was. This is truly one of the worst movies of 2018. Even at a barely feature length 80 minutes, Destination Wedding is an unbearable disaster of a movie. Bitter, spiteful, hateful, idiotic characters pretending toward being funny misanthropes, Frank and Lindsey aren’t romantic comedy characters, they are the half-hearted offspring of screenwriters who watch half of a Judd Apatow movie and think they get the gist.

Movie Review: A Scanner Darkly

A Scanner Darkly (2006) 

Directed by Richard Linklater

Written by Richard Linklater 

Starring Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr, Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder, Rory Cochrane

Release Date July 7th, 2006

Published July 7th, 2006

The work of Philip K. Dick, the much revered sci fi Author,  has been adapted many times. Some, like Minority Report, have been quite successful. Others, like Paycheck, have been Hollywoodized disasters. Surprisingly only two of Philip K. Dick's full length novels have ever been adapted. Blade Runner , published under the original title "Do Robots Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", in 1981 and in 2006 A Scanner Darkly, Dick's dystopian drug tale from 1974, adapted in the highly unique fashion of director Richard Linklater.

For Dick, A Scanner Darkly was an examination of how the drug use of the sixties had taken so many of his friends and idols. For Linklater; this tale of drugs, corruption and paranoia is a jumping off point for a smart satire of modern paranoia and police state tactics. Keanu Reeves leads an awesome cast in A Scanner Darkly as Bob Arctor and Agent Fred. Bob is a drugged out loser living communally with other druggies in his former family tract home. Agent Fred is Bob's undercover cop alter-ego who is watching these druggies for possible trafficking in a drug called Substance D.

Fred's main target is a woman named Donna (Winona Ryder) who promises a major Substance D score but never delivers. She is supposedly Bob's girlfriend but she doesn't like to be touched so intimacy is unattainable. Bob/Fred's situation is worsened by his own growing addiction to Substance D which he has used to get close to his druggie pals. Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson round out the main cast of A Scanner Darkly as a pair of hopped up druggies. Given the well known, drug related, pasts of both actors the inside joke is obvious but still amusing. Downey gives a standout performance as a fast talking paranoid, conspiracy theorist who goes to extreme lengths to protect himself from unseen forces.

Paranoia is one of the many subjects of the broad satire of A Scanner Darkly. Paranoia, drugs, law enforcement, drug treatment; all are subjects of this highly literate animated head trip from director Richard Linklater. The universe of the film, set 7 years from now, is one in which a drug has conquered much of the United States. Police have set up elaborate surveillance systems and suspended many civil liberties in their attempts to curb the drug; with little success.

The organization used to rehab former users is corrupt and untouchable by even the cops. The paranoia in the film is most often drug induced but extends beyond that to a cameo by nutball conspriracy theorist and paranoia expert Alex Jones. Jones, who was also seen in Linklater's animated masterpiece Waking Life, has been good friends with Linklater for years which explains his inclusion in this film despite his many discredited conspiracies about 9/11, JFK and other such popular conspiracies.

The plot unfolds slowly because the focus of much of the film is the drug inspired verbal diarrhea of these literate but slightly askew characters. Once the film begins to develop a more cinematic form of storytelling the plot emerges almost mundanely. There is an element of police procedural beneath the head tripping rotoscope animation. Reeves' cop character under a mind bending disguise cloak does many of the things a cop in any other movie would do. He is slowly building his case for arresting his supposed friends.

If it weren't for his own drug dependence Agent Fred would be a regular cop gathering evidence for warrants and preparing a case against the criminals around him. Unfortunately, like Jason Patric's undercover cop in Rush, he gets sucked in and subsumed in his subject. If not for the animation and the minor sci fi conceits this could be a very typical plot. There is a twist at the end that gives the film a bit more of a kick than an average undercover cop flick, but that mundane element is still there.

Rotoscope animation under the direction of Richard Linklater is mesmerizing to watch. It's use in A Scanner Darkly lifts what could be an average movie up to the realm of something artful but not exactly art. The film is, at it's core to simple and far too detached to be art. There is no passion outside of a passion for the technology used in painting real life actors with the watercolor tones of rotoscope animation. Beyond the animation there is this unique collection of actors to enjoy and that goes a long way. Each of the four leads are like old friends and watching them interact with one another is a treat. We have watched these four actors for so long that it's odd to think they have never worked together in a film before.

Downey, as I mentioned earlier, is the stand out of this ensemble but there is something to be said here for the maturation of Keanu Reeves. Joke all you want about his dunderhead reputation, that slacker cred plays to his advantage in this picture and I think I see him really beginning to mature into a real actor. He's using his persona more to his own advantage in recent films and that is a smart decision. This is not Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly. What director Richard Linklater makes of Dick's novel is not really a sci fi exercise in metaphoric storytelling but rather, an often straightforward, if somewhat funky, detective story that is only sci fi in terms of its future setting and flashes of futuristic technology.

This version of A Scanner Darkly is fascinated by its own meandering rambles and meditations and especially its trippy visuals. That is not exactly a bad thing; the rambling is often funny and the animation eye catching but a little more of Dick's literate symbolism might have made for a meaty and interesting movie. As it is, A Scanner Darkly is attention grabbing but lackadaisical.

Essay On the Female Characters in John Wick

On the Female Characters in John Wick 

John Wick (2014) 

Directed by Chad Stahelski 

Written by Derek Kolstad 

Starring Keanu Reeves, Adrienne Palicki, Bridget Moynahan, Bridget Regan

There is an aspect of John Wick that has been nagging at me and that is the treatment of women in the film. The movie isn’t openly hostile to women but you can definitely sense that every person involved in the creation of the story was a man.

Two female characters exist in John Wick, three if you want to count women with dialogue, an extra has a line that could fit this discussion later. The first is John Wick’s wife, Helen, played by Bridget Moynihan. Helen is the driving force for John to abandon his profession as a professional killer and settle into suburban life in New Jersey.

Essentially, she exists to make John less of a man because she forces him to give up who he is, and while she’s not portrayed as anything of a harridan, he gave up his life as a killer quite willingly, it’s clear by how quickly and ferociously he returns to killing that she had attempt to rob him of his very essence, who he truly was. This is a common fear among weak men that women are constantly attempting to change them.

The second woman in the story is Ms. Perkins, played by Adrienne Palicki, Ms. Perkins is a particularly egregious creation because she’s hyper-sexualized and yet she’s supposed to be one of the boys, a fellow killer. If however, she were truly one of the boys would she have made such a clumsy and flawed attempt at killing John Wick.

Ms. Perkins is also portrayed as greedy, a classic, cliched, narcissistic male portrait of women. Ms. Perkins willingly flogs the rules of The Continental, a hotel for killers with rules specifying that no killing can be done on the grounds of the hotel, a rule that has seemingly held for years until Ms. Perkins broke the rules to satisfy her greedy pursuit of the 4 million dollar bounty on John’s head.

Spoiler Alert:

Ms. Perkins meets her end in John Wick with a sizable level of overkill. After betraying and killing Willem Dafoe’s John Wick ally, Ms. Perkins is called to return to The Continental. She arrives in a stylishly lit park area where she is ushered into the center and informed that she can never return to The Continental. The warning however, does not suffice, as four large men emerge from the shadows forming a box on all sides of her. She is then shot from all angles.

Being that she is the only LIVING female in the movie, essentially the female lead, a better movie might have allowed her fate to have some narrative necessity, instead she is used as a prop in a secondary story and then discarded like trash, literally, a mythic crime scene clean up crew, seen earlier in the film at John Wick’s home to retrieve the body’s of oodles of dead, faceless henchmen, arrive to sweep her away like trash after sporting event.

So, Ms. Perkins, (I can’t stress this enough) the only LIVING, female character in the movie ends the film as just another faceless goon. This after she had made her clumsy, faltering, greedy attempt to kill John Wick, a task she, of course, failed at. And don’t think I have forgotten her efficient killing of a random fellow hitman at the hotel. That scene does not demonstrate her competence as a killer, it demonstrates that she is simply, and purely evil. Being that she is the lone woman in the movie what does that say about the film’s opinion of women?

I briefly mentioned a third female type in John Wick and that woman is a bartender at the bar in the basement of The Continental. Her name is Addy and she is played by a very beautiful actress named Bridget Regan. Addy only has one scene and it’s not a very important one. She exists to build the cult of John Wick. She functions as a John Wick fangirl, fawning over his return to the world of killers. Now, there was certainly little time for the movie to give Addy much weight or presence, but she does demonstrate a lack of imagination on the part of the filmmakers to cast a woman in the role of the fawning fan. That lack of imagination however, extends to the entire film’s roster of female characters.

So what is the point of this essay? Do I not like John Wick because of the treatment of women in the film? A little, if I’m being completely honest. I noticed the film’s attitude toward women which certainly says something about how the film treats women. I’m sure there are many other examples of films with anti-female attitudes but it really stuck out John Wick and it does effect how I feel about the film.

In my podcast, I Hate Critics you will hear me praise John Wick for its dark wit and well choreographed action and the exceptional level of detail given to sidelights like The Continental or the cleaning crew. All of that praise is true, I loved those aspects along with the performance of Michael Nyqvist as the lead bad guy, and Alfie Allen as the bad guy’s son, the character who’s actions bring John Wick back to the world of killers. I also liked Keanu Reeves whose least interesting qualities are hidden behind the film’s well portrayed action and propulsive plotting.

It wasn’t until further reflection and the reading of a feminist essay on a completely different movie, that I thought to consider my reservations about the way women were portrayed in John Wick and my appreciation of the film morphed into something I now feel slightly guilty about.

These thoughts on John Wick may, in fact, lead to further investigation of the way women have been portrayed in recent Hollywood features. This isn’t the first time I’ve had these thoughts this year, a year in which it seems as if roles for women have been greatly diminished.

Movie Review: The Matrix Resurrections

Matrix Resurrections (2021) 

Directed by Lana Wachowski 

Written by Lana Wachowski 

Starring Keanu Reeves, Jonathan Groff, Yahya Abdul Mateen II, Neil Patrick Harris, Jessica Henwick, Carrie Ann Moss

Release Date December 22nd, 2021 

Published August 20th, 2022 

The story of Matrix Resurrections proceeds as a pursuit of Neo by those who wish to save and protect Neo from a world that wishes to exploit him. That’s a description of the plot of Matrix Resurrections and a description of how modern popular culture feels about Keanu Reeves the actor. Any check of social media searches of Keanu Reeves reveals a wholesome, earnest appreciation for Keanu and his down to Earth approach to being a worldwide celebrity. 

The Matrix Resurrections picks up with Thomas Anderson/Neo working as a video game developer. Thomas’s most popular game is called ‘The Matrix’ and the incidents that we witness in the original Matrix trilogy are now things that happened in the video game that Thomas Anderson developed with his partner, Mr. Smith (Jonathan Goff). The plot kicks in when Thomas Anderson subconsciously creates a simulation in his code that creates a new program called, Morpheus (Yahya Abdul Mateen II). 

The Morpheus program catches the eye of Bugs (Jessica Henwick), a ship’s Captain in the real world who recognizes this strange blip in the code and goes to investigate it. Bugs ends up pulling Morpheus out of the Matrix and this begins their search for Neo, The One, the man who went missing many years earlier after being viewed by many as a God who may have the ability to destroy the Matrix and end the tyranny of the God-like machines that enslave humanity and have been trying to crush what remains of a society outside of their control. 

The Matrix Resurrections is very smartly cast with each choice providing a clever new layer to the Matrix mythos. The best addition to the cast is Jessica Henwick, a sort of fan insert character both fan-girlng over being the one to find Neo and getting the chance to protect and preserve his legend. Henwick is a capable action star, a convincing badass, and a hard as nails Captain as she lives out our fantasy of protecting Keanu Reeves from all harm. I say that in jest but it’s true, if you love Keanu you’d likely leap at the chance to protect him from harm. That makes Bugs a terrific fan avatar, smart and capable, tough and laying down her life on behalf of our beloved hero. 

Also joining the cast Neil Patrick Harris, an obvious program, at least to us, as he plays Psychiatrist to Thomas Anderson, feeding him Blue pills and repeatedly reassuring Thomas Anderson that this life he created for himself, the Matrix, is all in his mind. Harris is snaky and charming in the role, a proper and unique antagonist for this franchise entry. Bonus points for recognizing a distinct disdain for the industry of psychiatry of which director Lana Wachowski is not a fan. 

Then there is the glorious Jonathan Groff, the erstwhile King George of Hamilton, taking over the role of ‘Agent’ Smith. In the story that Neo is living in, Smith is his antagonistic business partner, a thorn in his side but one he can’t live without. The parallels between Thomas Anderson’s new life and Neo’s old life endlessly fighting with Agent Smith within the rubbery reality of The Matrix are beautifully illustrated even as Smith’s existence in this sequel story is a tad bit mystifying. 

Yes, there are reasons why both Morpheus and Agent Smith do not appear in their original form but you must discover that on your own by watching The Matrix Resurrections. And that is something I do recommend even as the movie does spin its wheels a bit while underlining Neo’s life as Thomas Anderson and the boring and suspicious repetitions in his daily routine. Once the movie advances to the real world things get much more interesting. 

Big shoutout to Jada Pinkett Smith who is excellent in her too short role. Some will complain about her makeup job but, for me, her performance is too good to complain about cakey makeup. Jada Pinkett Smith delivers gravitas and a believable sense of conflicted emotions, resentment and hurt battling against a sincere care and hope. It’s a very small role but Pinkett-Smith’s Niobe is a great way to link the past and the present in surprising and exciting ways. Her motivation and conflict is given weight and care. 

I also want to highlight the score which is exceptional. The final act score is propulsive to the point of exhausting, in a good way. The music, credited to Johnny Klimek and Tom Tykwer, and the chaotic action of the final moments of The Matrix Resurrections combines the electronica infused score of the early 2000s Matrix sequels with a post-modern orchestral sound heavy on piano and choir to deepen and enrich the electronica sound that Tykwer brought to the fore throughout his career. 

Is The Matrix Resurrections preaching to the choir, using nostalgia to appeal to a built in fanbase? Perhaps, but, since I am a member of that built-in fanbase, I didn’t really mind. Unlike supposed original concept blockbusters from this past year, the team behind The Matrix Resurrections are really good at making a blockbuster movie that doesn’t feel like just another cash grab. There is a strong sense in the work of co-writer and director Lana Wachowski had a story she really wanted to tell, far beyond the profit motivation that was undeniably always there. 

The Matrix Resurrections debuted in theaters and streaming on HBO Max on December 22nd, 2021.

Movie Review John Wick

John Wick (2014) 

Directed by Chad Stahelski 

Written by Derek Kolstad

Starring Keanu Reeves, Ian McShane, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Dean Winters, Bridget Moynahan

Release Date October 24th, 2014

Published January 5th, 2019

Keanu Reeves returns to theaters this weekend in Replicas, a new sci-fi flick in which he plays a scientist attempting to clone the family he lost in a car wreck. While that film looks, from the trailer, like a complete trainwreck, the appeal of Keanu Reeves “Movie Star” will remain regardless of how Replicas fares. In more than 30 years as a movie star, Keanu Reeves has earned our eternal adoration as the blankly handsome face of action movies.

As I wrote yesterday, in my review of The Matrix, it’s Reeves’ very blankness that makes his otherwise ethereal handsomeness an everyman quality. We relate to him because we project upon Keanu our own personality in a more conventionally handsome vessel. That is certainly the appeal of Keanu in The Matrix and that extends also to the budding John Wick franchise. Once again, Keanu is our attractive avatar, just enough of a blank personality for us to fantasize ourselves into the role.

John Wick stars Keanu Reeves as the titular John Wick, the world’s foremost assassin. Or, at least, he used to be. Once John Wick got married he retired his arsenal of death in favor of being a loyal and dutiful husband. Sadly, John’s wife recently passed away, leaving him a present, a dog, to help him to not be lonely. Though not conventionally a ‘dog person,’ John takes to the pup as a connection to his late wife.

One day, as John is out and about happily in retirement, he stops at a gas station while driving his cherry black muscle mustang. A seemingly random rich guy, the son of a local mobster, tries to convince John to sell his car. John rebuffs the offer and is on his way but the kid, played by Alfie Allen, is not one to take no for an answer. The kid sends thugs to kill John and take the car and during the assault, they kill John’s dog. This leads John Wick out of retirement and on the trail of the mobster’s kid.

The key to John Wick is the tremendous world building by screenwriter Derek Kolstad and the film’s credited and uncredited directors, Chad Stahelski and David Leitch. Every other character in John Wick goes out of their way to talk about how scary Wick is. The main bad guy in the movie, the mobster played by the late Michael Nyqvist, only opposes John Wick because of his son. He appears more upset with his son for attacking Wick than he does at Wick for wanting revenge.

Then there are the brilliant touches around the edges of John Wick. The fight scene in which the dog is killed ends with John Wick contacting a secret, underground cleaning service that specializes in disposing of bodies. The richness of this idea is remarkable as in the John Wick universe you could make a dark comic television show based on these minor characters who answer a question that has been raised in dozens of action movies in the past: how are bodies disposed of in action movies?

Then there is the brilliant creation of The Continental, a hotel that itself could be the premise of a movie or a television show. Ian McShane is the proprietor of The Continental, a luxury hotel that caters to criminals and assassins. So respected are the halls of The Continental that even the most hardened killers are obliged to honor the rules against killing on the premises. The Continental offers swift justice to anyone who breaks the rules.

I could argue that the film’s treatment of women is less than great, the only woman with a relatively large role, Adrianne Palicki as contract killer Mrs. Perkins, is not well fleshed out and feels like a token opposite all of the testosterone on display, but that doesn’t affect my enjoyment of John Wick. The sequel appears to be attempting to rectify the role of women in the John Wick Universe by casting Halle Berry in John Wick 3.

The Keanu Reeves of John Wick may have more clenched teeth intensity but he maintains that same quiet behind the eyes approach that makes him so appealing as an audience avatar. The quality that many critics fault Reeves for, a lack of a dominating personality, is, for me, one of his great strengths. He’s lowkey and passive enough as a personality to allow the audience to reflect ourselves in him.

In John Wick, Keanu offers us the role of a lifetime as the baddest man on the planet. He’s the man everyone else is afraid of with a set of envious skills that we can pretend for 90 or 100 minutes of our skills. Through Keanu’s eyes we become John Wick and that audience identifies with Keanu, his status as our resident handsome avatar is what makes Keanu a movie star who has lasted for so many years.

Movie Review John Wick 3 Parabellum

John Wick Parabellum (2019) 

Directed by Chad Stahelski 

Written by Derek Kolstad, Shay Hatten, Chris Collins

Starring Keanu Reeves, Halle Berry, Mark Dacascos, Ian McShane, Lance Reddick

Release Date May 17th, 2019

Published May 17th, 2019

The John Wick franchise is the best thing Keanu Reeves has done in his career. I realize that won’t be a popular statement with the fandoms of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure or The Matrix, but it's true. The role of supreme assassin John Wick fits Keanu Reeves like a perfectly tailored bulletproof suit. Reeves’ very physical being seems to have been crafted to act out John Wick’s incredibly choreographed violence. It’s a joy to behold for fans of action cinema.

John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum (Prepare for War) picks up in the immediate aftermath of John Wick Chapter 2. John now has a $14 million dollar bounty on his head and is considered Excommunicado by the community of assassins amongst whom he’d been considered the greatest of all. Now, thanks to his old friend, Winston (Ian McShane), John has one hour to get his affairs in order before his own contract goes live and he becomes a target.

Writer Derek Kolstad and Director Chad Stehelski, who’ve each been with this franchise from the start, have a remarkable talent for world building, as they’ve demonstrated in each of the first two Chapters of the John Wick story. The layer upon layer of dynamic mythology that Stahelski and Kolstad have crafted within this John Wick universe kicks right back in with John Wick Chapter 3 and draws you right back into this unique world in mere minutes.

The odds are well stacked against John Wick and yet, the screenplay does a remarkable amount of work to sell you the idea that an army the size of a small country won’t be enough to slow down our hero. The same mythologizing that gave us such compelling details as The Continental, a hotel for assassins only, a service that caters to killers by removing large numbers of dead bodies, and so on, also gives us a John Wick personal mythology that makes Wick both the Devil incarnate and Death in human form.

John Wick carries this remarkable air of menace and invulnerability, it’s like rooting for a horror movie villain. John Wick could come up on Jason Voorhees and you would fairly assume John Wick is the more fearsome of the two. That comes from Derek Klolstad’s exceptional script which takes care to include dialogue that never lets up in putting over the idea of John Wick as the most remarkable killer since the plague.

The fight choreography in John Wick Chapter 3 is insanely awesome. A fight scene inside what appears to be a weapons museum is gloriously staged with gut wrenching violence that also happens to be incredibly witty. The audience I was with watching John Wick Chapter 3 groaned and hollered and giggled with delight at the various unique ways John Wick murdered potential assassins. Knife throwing, neck cracking, close quarters combat, all of it at a breakneck pace that never feels too fast. It’s damned brilliant and director Chad Stahelski and stunt coordinator Jonathan Eusebio deserve all the praise imaginable for this remarkable work.

Keanu Reeves, as I mentioned, has never been better than when he’s in John Wick’s black, bulletproof suit. His blank slate face is a perfect mask for the baddest killer on the planet. The character calls for an actor who masks his emotions and never betrays his thoughts to his opponents and Reeves is remarkably great at not letting anyone in on his inner thoughts. In the past, that might be me calling Reeves boring, or dim, but in John Wick, it comes off as the perfect choice for how to play this character.

John Wick doesn’t show weakness, he rarely appears to register pain, he’s never cocky or flashy and he doesn’t smile. All of those qualities are exactly the kinds of things that have held Keanu Reeves back in other movies and yet, with John Wick, it’s as if the character were tailored for Reeves’ unique acting talent. Reeves’ wiry physicality, and powerhouse use of angles and leverage, it could be a stunt person or CGI, whatever, it looks awesome. He doesn’t just play John Wick, his body appears to have been built specifically for the balletic violence of this character.

I completely adore John Wick Chapters 1,2 and 3. This is a great franchise with a remarkable pace, incredible style and a performance by Keanu Reeves that is relentlessly entertaining. John Wick is incredibly violent and that should be noted here for those who think they want to see what is likely going to be the number 1 movie in America on opening weekend. John Wick Chapter 3 is filled with bloody, gory, brutal violence, of the hard R-Rated variety. If violence is a turn off for you, John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum is not the movie for you.

Movie Review The Day the Earth Stood Still

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) 

Directed by Scott Derrickson

Written by David Scarpa

Starring Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Jaden Smith, Jon Hamm, Kathy Bates, Kyle Chandler

Release Date December 12th, 2008

Published December 12th, 2008

My fellow critics are being far too hard on the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still starring Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly. Maybe it's fond memories of the 1951 Robert Wise original or maybe they are just grumpy, but my fellow critics have come out hard against this movie and I think they are overreacting. I will stipulate that from the standards of a traditional good movie vs bad movie standard The Day The Earth Stood Still is a bad movie. On the other hand, I think all of us knew that going in.

Keanu Reeves stars in The Day The Earth Stood Still as Klaatu, an alien from some unnamed universe collective. He has come to rescue the earth. From whom you might wonder. Autobots and Decepticons? No. The Borg Collective? No. Gremlins? No. No Klaatu is here to save the earth from you. You and me and your brother, mother, sister and cousin. Yes, humanity is a threat to the planet and if you can't pull that metaphor out of thin air, you really need to pick up a freakin' newspaper.

For the supremely dull, The Day The Earth Stood Still is an environmentalist parable. Humans are poisoning the planet and Klaatu is here to rescue it and the non-human inhabitants that are the earth's real friends. Standing in Klaatu's way is scientist Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly). Well she isn't physically standing in his way but she does appoint herself the savior by trying to reason with the killer alien.

Helen and her supremely irritating son Jacob (Jaden 'Big Willie's kid' Smith) team up to show Klaatu that humanity can change, learn lessons and maybe stop killing the planet. All we need is a wake up call. How about the destruction of most of the eastern seaboard?

Kathy Bates, Jon Hamm and Kyle Chandler round out the rest of the main cast in inconsequential roles. Then again, there is little of consequence in the whole of The Day The Earth Stood Still. Which brings me to my central thesis. Despite the environmental parable, at its heart The Day The Earth Stood Still is not a message movie. This is pure popcorn entertainment. Director Scott Derrickson gets it. He focuses great attention on the special effects which even the most ardent haters admit are pretty cool. The tiny metal bugs that begin eating humanity are badass effects and that truck eating scene. Very Cool.

So what if the metaphor is obvious and Keanu is a total cheeseball and that the film is more blatant about cross promotion than your average commercial TV broadcast, we knew walking into this movie that great art was not in our future. What The Day The Earth Stood Still was meant to deliver and what it does deliver are eye catching effects and some unintentional humor. We got those things in spades. I laughed throughout and left the theater with a big smile on my face. This goofball, popcorn blockbuster is fast paced, fun and the effects are dynamite. To expect this movie to treat serious topics with serious intent is a fool's errand.

You walk in knowing this is a big dumb movie and that is part of what you get. You also get a kick out of just how big and dumb the movie is. The filmmakers may not have meant to make me laugh and my smile at the end may have been somewhat ironic but so what. I truly enjoyed the experience of The Day The Earth Stood Still. How could I not recommend to you such a good time movie.

Movie Review Replicas

Replicas (2019) 

Directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff 

Written by Chad St. John

Starring Keanu Reeves, Thomas Middleditch, Alice Eve, John Ortiz

Release Date January 11th, 2019

Published January 11th, 2019

Replicas isn’t as bad as I assumed it would be. Instead, Replicas are just bad in a more bland and general fashion. Where I have spent the last couple of days praising Keanu Reeves’ blank slate approach to being an action hero, here that blankness is more dead eyed and bored. Reeves isn’t holding back to give the audience an avatar, he’s checked out in the way that big time actors can tend to check out when they are just collecting a paycheck.

In Replicas, Keanu Reeves stars as Bill, a big shot scientist attempting to copy a human mind into a computer. We watch as a dead body arrives having only died hours before. This dead man volunteered to have his brain mapped and attempted to be copied and put into a robot. Unfortunately, the man’s mind rejects the robot body, even going so far as to try and punch its own mind out.

With this failure it appears that Bill might lose his job and the company itself may go out of business according to Bill’s boss, Jones (John Ortiz). Meanwhile, Bill is leaving on vacation that same day. Bill’s family are going to take out a boat owned by Bill’s co-worker Ed (Thomas Middleditch) but unfortunately, on the way to the boat, Bill and his family are in a car wreck that kills Bill’s wife (Alice Eve) and their three children.

Devastated in the immediate aftermath of the accident, Bill doesn’t contact the authorities. Instead, he calls Ed and has him bring his brain mapping equipment. Bill then sets about copying the minds of his wife and children as he did the dead man in his experiment. You might assume from this that he is going to make robot copies of his family, given that is what has been introduced already but you would be wrong.

Turns out, Ed is an expert in cloning and Bill wants Ed to clone his dead family. The two then set about stealing 4 million dollars worth of company property and taking three cloning pods and various genetic materials to Bill’s home. They do this despite the security protocols the script setup prior to this scene. Ed tells Bill that in 17 days, if all goes well, he will have three members of his family back but it will be up to him to choose which three and whether he can give them the memories and personalities they once had.

Have you got all of that nonsense because the film is so convoluted you might need to take notes. And yet, the film is equally as empty headed as it is overcomplicated. Keanu Reeves could not possibly care less about this movie. Take for instance the car wreck aftermath scenes. Keanu reacts to the death of his family with the same level of concern one might have for being cut off in traffic, he appears aggravated with a touch of confusion.

Middleditch meanwhile has exactly zero chemistry with Reeves despite the two apparently being close friends, according to the script. Middleditch is a mess of tics and awkward attempts at humor and while it is similar to his work on HBO’s Silicon Valley it doesn’t fit the serious tone cultivated by director Jeffrey Nachmanoff, a television veteran whose only other feature was the similarly sedate and confused Traitor in 2008.

Nachmanoff also wrote the screenplay for the similarly overstuffed The Day After Tomorrow. Much like that film, Replicas is a jumble of competing ideas. We start with a robot and then leap over to cloning. The cloning is relatively meaningless as it only leads to a series of action movie confrontations and a chase scene. The clones wind up being a plot driver but there is little consequence to the clones as characters.

Alice Eve is completely wasted in the role of wife and clone wife. The young star who made a strong impression in Star Trek a few years ago has almost zero presence in Replicas. You might expect from this premise that the clones would have a sinister air, perhaps a Twilight Zone like consequence, but no, they’re just perfect copies of Bill’s family, minus his young daughter because he only had three pods.

The film tries to mine some depth from Bill erasing his youngest daughter from the clones’ memories but Keanu Reeves can’t be bothered to express any genuine angst over this development and thus we don’t care much either. Much like how he reacted to the death of his family, Reeves’ Bill appears mildly befuddled by the decision to erase his daughter. Then, with no build up or drama, he eventually just tells his wife she’s a clone and that he erased their daughter. What should have been an important moment plays like Bill admitting he was the one who ate the last of pudding pops.

Replicas are really dopey but, to be fair, I was expecting a trainwreck. The film’s trailer and marketing campaign made the film appear to be something akin to a Tommy Wiseau movie, minus the charm. Keanu Reeves is bored, Thomas Middleditch is irksome and Alice Eve is absent. Replicas are forgettably bad, just competent enough for it to slip your memory just as quickly as you leave the theater.

Movie Review Something's Gotta Give

Something's Gotta Give (2003) 

Directed by Nancy Meyers

Written by Nancy Meyers 

Starring Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Keanu Reeves, Frances McDormand, Amanda Peet, Jon Favreau

Release Date December 12th, 2003 

Published December 11th, 2003 

A strange thing can happen to an actor when they get almost too good at what they do. Audiences no longer perceive what they do as a performance. Jack Nicholson is one of those actors with that wonderful problem. After years of showing off that roguish, untamable charm, many people believe that is the man in real Life. Nicholson's personal life, from a tabloid perspective, does nothing to change that perception. Nicholson's new film Something's Gotta Give, co-starring Diane Keaton, and directed by Nancy Meyers, slyly plays to Jack's perception and then against it to terrific romantic and comedic effect.

Nicholson stars as Harry Sanborn, a record company owner with a fetish for younger woman. Specifically, Harry only goes for woman under 30. His latest little twinkie is Marin Berry (Amanda Peet) who brings Harry to her mother's beach house in the Hamptons for a romantic weekend. Unfortunately, she didn't know her mother, Erica (Keaton), would be there, leading to an awkward meeting in the kitchen between Erica and Harry in his underwear.

From there, things go from bad to worse after a disastrous dinner. Harry and Marin retire to the bedroom and Harry has a heart attack. On the orders of doctors, Harry can't travel and must stay at the beach house, even though Marin is returning to the city. Left alone, Harry and Erica bicker in your traditional romantic comedy fashion until they find a little common ground, and after Harry accidentally catches Erica in the nude. This begins a romantic series of events that aren't what you expect.

This being a romantic comedy, there must be arbitrary roadblocks to keep the lovers apart. One of those is Harry's doctor, played by Keanu Reeves, who takes an interest in Erica. Others are less obvious and are played as emotional roadblocks but are really choices that are made according to the needs of the script.

Director Nancy Meyers knows her chick flicks, having directed Mel Gibson in the blockbuster What Woman Want. Meyers knows the right comic beats to hit and how to get what she wants from her actors. That said, she brings little else to the table as a director. Meyers must rely heavily on the skill of her actors to carry off the material and lucky for her, she is truly blessed in Something's Gotta Give.

To watch a pair of pro's like Nicholson and Keaton fall in love onscreen is a true joy and while not all of the situations the characters find themselves in work, these two brilliant actors make a good deal of them work. Most of the best comedic moments in the film are played with merely a sideways glance, a skill that you just can't teach.

The first half of Something's Gotta Give plays off of what you expect of Jack Nicholson, that free swinging playboy reputation that will follow him for the rest of his life. However, once the two leads are left alone, the film becomes more about Keaton's wonderfully neurotic Erica. A playwright, Erica begins writing her moments with Harry into her latest play leading up to one of the film’s great gags on the set of the play just before it opens.

Something's Gotta Give has elements of your typical romantic comedy, a few too many of those elements for my taste. It wants to be insightful about romance in the later years of life and aging in general but its tone is a little too light for any real insight. What the film has going for it is two terrific actors who never seem to have peaked even as they get older. For that reason, I recommend Something's Gotta Give.

Movie Review The Matrix Reloaded

Matrix Reloaded (2003) 

Directed by Lana and Lily Wachowski 

Written by Lana and Lily Wachowski 

Starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Hugo Weaving, Carrie Ann Moss, Harry Lennix, Jada Pinkett Smith, Randall Duk Kim 

Release Date May 15th, 2003 

Published May 14th, 2003 

You know a film is a true cultural phenomena when people show up dressed as the film's characters. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and now add to that The Matrix. Numerous guys dressed as Neo or Agent Smith, even a couple girls dressed as Trinity. No Morpheus, the dressing up thing seems to be mostly a white people thing.

The question is, is The Matrix worthy of such a following? If the reaction amongst the four sold out shows on opening night at my local theater is any indication, it won't matter what pop critics like myself say.

The battle for humanity continues in Matrix: Reloaded as Neo (Keanu Reeves) awaits a message from the Oracle that will advise him on his next move in the war against the agents of the Matrix. Before that message, Neo, along with Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie Ann Moss), are called back to Zion to deal with the robot army that is digging towards the last human city. It's up to Morpheus to convince the people in charge that waiting for the Oracle is just as important as defending Zion. According to him, if prophecy is true there will be no need to defend Zion because the Matrix will be no more.

Standing against Morpheus is Commander Lock (Harry Lennix) the leader of Zion's military and the man who is now with Morpheus' ex, Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith). Lock is more pragmatic than Morpheus and does not believe in the prophecy. Niobe seems uncertain either way. When the message from the Oracle is received, Neo reenters the Matrix and is told to seek out the mystical Key Maker (Randall Duk Kim) who can lead him to the Architect, the man who created the Matrix.

The Key Maker is being held by a rogue computer program called The Merovingian (Lambert Wilson). He is a program that was to be deleted by the Matrix but has escaped and hides out with other deleted programs, including his wife Persephone (Monica Bellucci) and the Twins (Adrian and Neil Rayment). Once they are able to get the Key Maker, he will lead them to the center of the Matrix where the Architect resides, only Neo can get there. According to the prophecy once he does, the Matrix will crumble.

Before all of this, Neo must first overcome a series of prophetic dreams in which he watches Trinity die. Oh, and there is also the problem of Agent Smith. Now free to roam the Matrix as a rogue program, Smith has developed the ability to copy himself infinitely, an ability he takes full advantage of in the fight scene that is the film’s center piece (Dubbed “the burly brawl” by the effects team). In the brawl, Neo fights off hundreds of Agent Smith's before simply flying away as he did at the end of the first film. The flying ability is something Neo puts to good use in Reloaded as he is still developing the talents that make him the One.

The best part of Matrix: Reloaded is the same thing that signified the original, its awe inspiring special effects. I already mentioned the burly brawl, and there is also a spectacular chase scene that reportedly cost a good portion of the film’s budget and 45 days of shooting. That’s longer than many entire films.

My favorite scene, however, is the opening fight scene with Trinity fighting off an agent as she flies through a window. The scene is repeated three times in the film as part of Neo's prophetic dream. Carrie Ann Moss looks so cool and so tough it makes the film for me. Especially cool is the gun barrel close-up as she falls out of the window and the use of bullet time that was made famous in the original.

Then there are the Twins, billed as Twin 1 and Twin 2. They seem like either ghosts or demons and have the ability to turn to smoke and fly through walls with an effect quite similar to the ones used in X2 for Alan Cummings’ Nightcrawler.

What's not so great is any scene that slows down for dialogue. The first forty minutes of the film, aside from Trinity's spectacular opening and Neo's brief battle with upgraded Agents, is surprisingly low key and heavy on dialogue, especially when we finally arrive in Zion. While there, Morpheus delivers a long-winded “win one for the Gipper” speech. Then there is a protracted rave scene intercut with Neo and Trinity having sex. Nothing wrong with the sex but I didn't go to see Keanu's butt, I came to see him kick butt.

The scene with the Oracle is the most tedious, though highly anticipated by fans who believe the film’s metaphors. It's nothing against the late great Gloria Foster but her Oracle's habit of answering a question with a question becomes annoying fast. I said in my review of the original that the film reminded me of a college student who studied philosophical quotes but not actual philosophy. In Reloaded that same college student is working those quotes into conversations but still hasn't studied what they really mean. The film's mythos is still vague enough for as many interpretations as you can think of. Though I think the sex scene should put to rest the Christ comparisons, unless there is an unknown bible passage where Jesus bangs Mary Magdalene.

As I said though, you see The Matrix for the action and on that level the film delivers big time. Using its big budget to improve upon the original effects, Reloaded surpasses the original and becomes one of the single greatest visceral action films ever. On par with the groundbreaking action of Terminator 2 and before that Star Wars, both the effects champions of their times.

Writer-Directors Lana and Lily Wachowski have created a special effects extravaganza. While I wasn't drawn in by its thin philosophical and metaphorical script, I am hotly anticipating Matrix: Revolutions just to see if they can top the special effects and edge of your seat excitement of Reloaded.

Movie Review Street Kings

Street Kings (2008)

Directed by David Ayer

Written by James Ellroy, Kurt Wimmer, Jamie Moss

Starring Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, Chris Evans, Common, The Game 

Release Date April 11th, 2008 

Published April 10th, 2008 

In her review of Street Kings Manohla Dhargis calls the film 'accidentally entertaining'.  What the hell does that mean? Were you entertained or not? It seems she was but she was embarrassed about it. No such shame for this reviewer. Street Kings is a violent, not so bright thriller that succeeds because it is so competently compelling.

Keanu Reeves, at his monotone blank slate best, stars in Street Kings as corrupt cop Tom Ludlow. As he drinks himself into stupor, Ludlow takes comfort in the fact that his corrupt behavior gets the bad guy when the system can't or won't. Thus, when we meet Tom he is busting up a group of Korean gang members, shooting and killing four and making it look like a legit bust. In the process of his crime he saved the life of a pair of missing, kidnapped twins.

The ends however do not justify the means for his ex-partner (Terry Crews) who suspects immediately the real story of Tom's 'heroism'. Thankfully for Tom he has a powerful commander (Forest Whitaker) on his side along with a cew of fellow corrupt Vice Cops willing to falsify evidence and cover his backside.

When Tom's former partner goes to internal affairs, headed up by House star Hugh Laurie, Tom is ready to punch his ticket but he gets beaten to the punch when the two are ambushed in a shady convenience store robbery. Tom survives, his partner takes 18 bullets in what is obviously more than a wrong place, wrong time incident.

The death of his partner sparks a new conscience for Tom the rogue gunfighter cop and searching for the killers brings about an awakening that is as dangerous as any case he's ever busted with his dirty cop schtick.

Street Kings was directed by David Ayer who debuted last year with the highly overrated vigilante actioner Harsh Times. That film featured an over the top performance by Christian Bale that contributed to the film's troubled tone and lack of any semblance of realism. In Street Kings, Ayer is plagued by the opposite kind of performance from Reeves, a monotone, relatively colorless performance that fails the film's emotional connectivity.

Not that Reeves' performance is not effective. In fact, this is one of the more engaged and active performances of Reeves' career. However, he simply isn't well suited to this role. Reeves' brand of earnest seriousness combined with a limited emotional range is not well suited to such a broadly emotional role.

Tom Ludlow is a vaguely racist, angry, drunken mess who kills criminals to deal with his pain and begins to feel guilty about his place in the world. The role calls for an actor who doesn't overplay the emotional extremes but unlike Reeves is not stoney eyed and inscrutable. A slightly younger Denzel Washington could have knocked this one out of the park.

That said, I don't mean to trash Reeves who I think is more talented than he is often given credit for. Yes, his limitations are well demonstrated but what he lacks in emotional demonstration he makes up for in many roles with his body language. He is a tremendous physical actor who uses his wiry frame to great effect.

In Street Kings Reeves' physicality gives him a presence that he's never had before. Adding a few pounds of muscle and a couple pounds around the midsection, Reeves communicates both his toughness and his destructive nature with his body.

The film remains hamstrung by Reeves lack of emotion but Director David Ayer still manages to make something of what he has. Using Reeves' man of action physical presence, Street Kings plays loose with the emotional stuff and becomes more of a straight action movie, heavy on bloodletting violence and light on the aftermath.

The content of Street Kings could have been something special with a more rangey actor in the lead but Reeves doesn't kill the movie. With Reeves in the lead we get a solidly crafted action flick that nails you to your seat with suspense and raises you from it with stunning acts of action movie violence. Nothing to be embarrassed about, Street Kings is a flawed, messy, yet highly entertaining old school action flick.

Movie Review The Lake House

The Lake House (2006) 

Directed by Alejandro Agresti 

Written by David Auburn 

Starring Sandra Bullock, Keanu Reeves, Christopher Plummer, Dylan Walsh, Shorheh Aghdashloo  

Release Date June 16th, 2006 

Published June 15th, 2006 

I have a favorite kind of moment. It's a moment of intimacy that happens rarely. It is usually confined to the first kiss of a new relationship. It is a moment where you and a new love look into one another's eyes and, within inches of each other, share the same warm breathes of air. That moment just before the kiss is my favorite moment, better often than the kiss itself which can sometimes be disappointing. But that moment before the kiss, never fails. The new romance The Lake House starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock captures that moment beautifully as the two fabulous stars play strangers who share more than one first kiss under some very odd circumstances.

Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock star in The Lake House as Alex and Kate two strangers who have each lived in a beautiful glass enclosed house on a lake north of Chicago. They meet when Kate moves out of the house and leaves a note to the next tenant to please forward her mail. Returning to the lake house to escape the stress of her job as an E.R resident Kate finds the house still empty but a letter waiting for her. The letter is from Alex an architect who claims to be the new tenant but also that no one has lived in the house before him.

This odd exchange between Alex and Kate takes on a bizarre bit of science fiction when Alex claims to be writing in 2004 and Kate from 2006. Somehow through the magic lake house mailbox they commune through notes that begin to form a running conversation. Naturally, Alex and Kate fall tragically in love. Tragically because they cannot bring themselves to meet. Kate has some serious commitment issues stemming from a bad relationship with Morgan (Dylan Walsh). Meanwhile Alex is distracted dealing with his brilliant but difficult father (Christopher Plummer).

One of the fun and frustrating things about The Lake House is how often you will be distracted trying to keep track of it's competing timelines. Keeping track of the many things Alex does in the past that effect what happens to he and Kate in the future is a futile effort that left me with more questions than answers. A remake of the Korean film Il Mare, The Lake House fails to explain away the same logical questions that film failed to answer. However where Il Mare is a little unsatisfying in it's unanswered questions, The Lake House colors over similar problems with star power.

Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves have sensational chemistry stemming from their history together from Speed and the maturing of their star personas. Neither has accomplished the kind of star power predicted for them but that has not dimmed their appeal in the right roles. Alex and Kate are near perfect roles for each as Reeves is not forced to concentrate to hard and Bullock just has be her naturally huggable self.

The films best performance comes from Christopher Plummer as Alex's father. As an aging world renowned architect Plummer perfectly captures the curious proclivity of the genius to be as cruel as they are brilliant. The skills most hone into being a loving compassionate human being are, for the brilliant, often channeled directly into their work with little left for trivial matters like other people. Watch as Plummer takes on a vocal tic in the role that is pitch perfect in capturing his halting attempts to find the humanity a normal person is supposed to have.

Director Alejandro Agresti, working in America for the first time after years of work in his native Argentina, brings a lush visual tone to The Lake House that is especially loving of the architecture of the Chicago setting. At times the architecture is so lovingly captured that the film becomes more of a tourism calendar and less of a romantic drama. Of course with a love story as convoluted as Kate and Alex's getting lost in the architecture at least draws your mind away from the mind bending plot issues.

I am willing to look past many of the problems with The Lake House because these two stars are so great together. It's long been a hobby of mine to trash Keanu Reeves for his slacker style and slack-jawed delivery but here and in his previous film Constantine Mr. Wind Through The Mountains (that is the meaning of the name Keanu FYI), has really begun to mature into a likable screen presence if still not much of an actor.

Sandra Bullock has always been cute and sweet and even in dreck like Miss Congeniality 2 she finds moments to show off just how lovable she is. In The Lake House Bullock has the kind of role we want her in, sweet, shy and longing. Not rooting for her is like not rooting for a kitten to open it's eyes for the first time. Bullock is the perfect romantic avatar, you can't help but identify with her, root for her, and cheer when she gets her big romantic moment. 

Let's get back to that kiss I mentioned earlier. While I have been glib in my descriptions of Reeves and Bullock in the past two paragraphs I must admit that they transcend all of that with their first kiss in The Lake House. With Paul McCartney's beautiful love song "This Never Happened Before" playing in the background, Alex and Kate share a slow dance that burns up the screen leading to that moment, that two or three seconds of time where two people make the decision to become one for just a moment. That moment of hot breath shared. This kiss is no disappointment.

The kiss alone is nearly enough to make me recommend The Lake House.

In the end it's star power over brain power for me as I admit, I really enjoyed The Lake House. Forget about figuring out the time line or whether Alex and Kate violated the prime directive by screwing around with time through their magic mailbox, go see The Lake House to see these two glamorous stars fall in the kind of love everyone dreams about. The Lake House is a love story and love has no time for your time travel logic. 

Movie Review: The Matrix Revolutions

The Matrix Revolutions (2003) 

Directed by The Wachowskis 

Written by The Wachowskis 

Starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie Ann Moss, Gloria Foster 

Release Date November 5th, 2003 

Published November 4th, 2003 

I was not of an age of reason when Return Of The Jedi was released. I did not understand the historical significance of Godfather Part 3. Now, years later and hopefully much wiser, I see those two films for what they are, the weakest films of two historically brilliant trilogies. So it should come as no surprise that the third film in The Matrix franchise, that one Critic I know called “Our Star Wars” is the weakest film of the three. Matrix Revolutions may not have anything as disappointing and sad as Ewoks in it, but its many flaws are almost as egregious.

Picking up exactly where The Matrix Reloaded left off, Revolutions begins with Neo on an operating table, comatose. Across from him is Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving), now in human form having just sabotaged a number of Zion's defenses. From here we learn that Neo is trapped in between the Matrix and the real world. With the advice of the Oracle (Mary Alice, taking over for the late Gloria Foster) and under the protection of Seraph (Collin Chou), Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie Ann Moss) enter the Matrix to save Neo.

To re-enter The Matrix and rescue Neo, Morpheus and Trinity must battle the Merovingian (Lambert Wilson), an all powerful evil inside the machinery of The Matrix, and track down a new character called The Trainman (Bruce Spence). This is done in no more than 20 minutes into the movie and we are once again out of the Matrix and headed for Zion. First however we must wade through another 20 minutes of dull exposition before we reach the first of the films to major set-pieces, the battle for Zion.

Here is the odd thing about the battle: it takes place without Neo, Morpheus, Trinity or any other character that we have come to identify with The Matrix. This major sequence leans entirely on Nona Gaye's Zee and Clayton Watson as The Kid. There is also plenty of screen time for Nathaniel Lee as Captain Mifune, and though he is quite the badass fighter, we have had no time to invest anything in his fate until now. Without the major players involved, the battle for Zion feels like a completely different and far less involving film.

Once major fighting in The Battle for Zion halts in we get another agonizing 20 or so minutes of dull exposition as we wait for Neo and Trinity to make their way to the machine city and Neo's final showdown with Hugo Weaving's Agent Smith. There is a good deal of dialogue along the way meant to build Smith into the ultimate evil which I found deeply confusing because wasn't the Matrix itself the ultimate evil? Now, because the movie needs someone for Neo to punch, Agent Smith steps into the lead villain role and we lose the innate conflict of the first films in the trilogy, or at least that goes very much on the backburner in favor of ugly CGI fight scenes. 

Whether or not the Matrix is destroyed you will have to see for yourself and hopefully you will find something in it that I did not. This was an odd experience for me because I had given up on the metaphorical and philosophical ideas behind The Matrix after the slick, stylish The Matrix Reloaded showed the series to be merely about special effects. Yet as I watched Revolutions I couldn't help but search for those mythical metaphors and an inkling of the philosophy that so many said lay in the heart of the trilogy. To my disappointment, I was right. The philosophical roots of The Matrix are just not there and without that, The Matrix Revolutions and the franchise in general nothing but cold sterile computer generated special effects.

Movie Review: The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009)

Directed by Rebecca Miller 

Written by Rebecca Miller

Starring Robin Wright, Mike Binder, Alan Arkin, Winona Ryder, Zoe Kazan, Keanu Reeves, Blake Lively

Release Date: November 27th, 2009

Published November 26th, 2009 

One woman re-traces the story of her life as she worries her mind is slipping away in “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.” Robin Wright stars as Pippa Lee, a wife and mother whose life is defined by those roles. As a very young lost soul, Pippa met and fell in love with the much older Herb Lee (Alan Arkin).When we meet Pippa Lee, she and Herb have moved into a retirement community in Connecticut. While Herb says they moved in order to protect assets from his life as a publishing magnate from taxes, both are concerned that Herb's mind has begun to slip. 

In the middle of the night someone has been wandering the house leaving a major mess. It turns out not to be Herb but Pippa who has been sleepwalking and that isn't all. She is sleep-driving and sleep-smoking, driving in the night to a local 24-hour shop to buy cigarettes. Afraid she is losing her mind, Pippa tracks back in her mind to her mother, Suky (Maria Bello), a woman addicted to amphetamines who didn't merely dote on her daughter but overwhelmed her as a living doll plaything.

Pippa's mother's addiction and massive mood swings lead to Pippa's own drug experimentation and eventually to her running off to New York to live with her lesbian aunt and her girlfriend, Kat (Julian Moore). Blake Lively plays teenage Pippa with a constantly dazed expression and sad eyes. It is teenage Pippa who meets and falls for Herb. 

Though I recount the plot to you in a somewhat linear fashion, writer-director Rebecca Miller, tells the story in a flashback style, cutting between Pippa's life in the retirement community and her life before and during the early parts of her marriage to Herb. The storytelling doesn't really jibe; the past doesn't comment on the present or really explain it. Pippa's memories are sort of random. That's not necessarily a criticism, Pippa is searching her memory for a meaning that is missing from her life and it makes sense that her search is futile.

The story deepens when Pippa meets Chris, the son of one of the other retirees. He has just ended a long relationship and now lives with his mother while working at the 24-hour shop where Pippa sleepwalks. To say what happens between Pippa and Chris would go too far, but I can tell you, it's not entirely what you might expect. That is the wonderful thing about Rebecca Miller's direction in “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee,” she and star Robin Wright Penn avoid typical choices. Penn's performance begins as off-puttingly thin. It grows to an irksome sort of oddity and then blossoms into something strangely, hypnotically fascinating.

If I had walked out half way through “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee” I would say Robin Wright was terrifically awful. However, I stuck with it and eventually I found that even the irritating qualities had an odd fascination. As I got used to Pippa's irritating qualities they began to reveal things about her and I was slowly won over. By the time Pippa makes her dramatic final decision I was totally with her and shocked by how much I was willing to join up for more of her journey.

The movie ends as if it could have gone on for another half hour and been just as intriguing. It's just the right hopeful note and if you can make it to the end, as I did you  will be surprised how satisfying yet abrupt the ending is.

“The Private Lives of Pippa Lee” is a strange and wonderful little movie with a performance by Robin Wright at its center that will divide people in hatred and glowing praise. It's a risky performance and one that will, in the long run, come to define the odd career of Ms. Wright who never quite blossomed into the leading lady so many expected her to be. Instead she is a working actress who’s made daring choices. Daring is the least of what can be said of Robin Wright's performance in “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.”