Keanu Reeves has been dismissed for flat delivery for most of his career, and the reassessment has been substantial. What reads as blankness works as a surface over something withheld, which is exactly what The Matrix and John Wick need.
Point Break, Speed and The Matrix made him an action star in three different registers, and My Own Private Idaho and The Devil’s Advocate show he can do other things when a director asks.
John Wick required months of firearms and judo training per film, and the choreography is shot in long takes specifically so the audience can see it is him.
He has a public reputation for generosity, including giving back substantial portions of his Matrix earnings to the effects and costume crews.
Carrie-Anne MossThe Matrix sequels rate 5 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Shot back to back and released six months apart, they answer questions the first film was stronger for leaving open, and they contain two of the best action…
Adrianne PalickiJohn Wick (2014) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Two stuntmen directed it for twenty million dollars, put the camera far enough back to see the whole body, and built an entire criminal economy out of about…
Anthony HopkinsCoppola's 1992 maximalist Dracula. Oldman, Ryder, Hopkins, Reeves.
Al PacinoThe Devil's Advocate is Taylor Hackford's 1997 American supernatural legal thriller adapting Andrew Neiderman's 1990 novel. The work is one of the principal supernatural legal thrillers ever produced and one of the strongest Pacino late-career performances.
Chris EvansDavid Ayer's 2008 LAPD corruption thriller. Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, James Ellroy on the screenplay.
Bill SkarsgardKeanu Reeves as the retired assassin. Action choreography that reshaped contemporary American action cinema.
Jennifer ConnellyRobert Wise directed the 1951 original. Scott Derrickson directed the 2008 remake.
Djimon HounsouConstantine is a better film than its reputation suggests. Francis Lawrence directed in his feature debut.
Keanu ReevesThe film operates as substantial two-hander production featuring Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder as basically the only significant on-screen presences across the runtime. Frank Crawley and Lindsay Hartway are middle-aged single travelers who meet at the small regional airport in…
Carrie-Anne MossThe Wachowskis accomplished something that almost never happens in blockbuster cinema: they made a philosophy lecture into one of the most viscerally entertaining action films ever made, and the philosophy and the action are the same thing. This review is…
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