*sticks tongue out*

Thanks to all you for taking the time to reply to a heretic in a generally kind and thoughtful way. I've gained some insight and a viewing list. If nothing else, I've discovered that fans of Keanu Reeves are a civilized bunch. Much appreciated, and be kind to the fishes.

- Uneak

In order from my last post:
1. Really, Anakin, you are something else. A pleasure chatting with you - very reasonable. I do think your reasonableness borders on slippery, like you've applied Aikido techniques to discussion: you grant me his weaknesses or poor performances then strike from new angles. Whatever: you're not argumentative and that helps make you persuasive. The first sentence of your post is a fluid extension of where mine left off: "A few critics have mentioned that Keanu is a good physical actor, less so a verbal one - he excels on the macro level (the way he moves, action scenes, physical expressions of emotion) rather than micro one (facial expressions, vocal inflections etc)." Good. I can see your point.

Yet I think you're also making mine. One thing I think you misrepresented: I didn't mean to imply that I like it when he opens his mouth. I was saying that I think he is best, when speaking, when he doesn't try to do anything other than say the words. Otherwise, yes, as a piece of movable scenery, he's okay.

As far as his having any remarkable physical presence, I disagree. I think he has discipline, and that his martial arts technique looks strong. I think he's gotten better at standing still as he's aged. But I think he also looked/looks physically uncomfortable in several of his roles. He has particular physical crutches that he uses to try to power through his discomfort. There are examples of those crutches in the link you sent me but more on that below. He was young.

You also ask "what have I seen him in?" Legitimate question and I think from what I'm reading above that I should watch more. I don't think I've seen anything since Matrix - and I was pleasantly surprised by him in that movie, in that I didn't find him annoying and disruptive....because after Dracula and Much Ado and Speed, I thought he lacked talent and intelligence, and that casting him was a purely scenic choice, doomed to annoy me if he was required to speak.

I followed your link to Young Again and yes, I stand corrected: he plays giddy, something I hadn't seen. And there are moments watching him where I think he's kind of adorable doing it. Like a boy wearing his dad's suit. Unfortunately, that scene is a cheap knock-off of Risky Business, not well-written, etc. I also think he shows his discomfort throughout, but as I said above - he's earnest, and he's game. He works hard at showing us joy.

After I watched the Young Again clip, I watched a top-ten Keanu roles clip, and saw a few interesting moments. He looks good in Parenthood, which I recall; almost better than average in the Replacements, which looks like a real canned piece of crap as a movie; less interesting than I remember in Private Idaho; just right in River's Edge. That role shows the best way to use him, playing a sweet, fairly dumb, but somewhat vulnerable and sensitive guy. Watching Ted I realize the reason that role sticks to him is because it seems like a caricature of his usual style. That's likely the reason he's decided to retreat into monolithic monotone - to escape where nature pulls him.

The best thing I watched, actually, was an interview from the time period of Much Ado. He's very expressive and honest, and he's trying hard to sound smart and failing, but he does seem thoughtful and sensitive, which are both endearing qualities. I thought this interview revealed why he generally isn't a good actor - he's trying so hard to layer something else on top of this basic dumb/sweet template. The true, honest Keanu is forever shrouded in B.S. Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTKTHBAA3-M

2. Anakin 2nd post down: another cool, thoughtful disarming post.

3. Luca - I like your point, that Neo is acting out his comic fanboy fantasies. Accounts for the swagger. The context of the rescue seems more relevant than the comic book though, and the side to side motion that he uses as he draws the weapons is the same movement pattern that he uses in the Young Again clip I watched, and that he uses throughout Bill and Ted, etc. That's Keanu's physical tick, both a way of displaying something and a way of mitigating something. George Clooney used to have something similar that he did in every movie, a side to side head waggle while making eye contact, like an ostrich or a cobra. He dropped it some point after Batman.

4. Luca - hard to argue. Most of the blame has to be laid at the Wachowski's feet.

5. Luca - haven't seen any of those movies. Thanks, I'll give it a shot. The Netflix cupboard is relatively Keanu-free.

6. Mme Renard - really, Norman MacLean? I have River Runs Through It on my bookshelf: "Logging, Pimping, and Your Pal Jim" is one of my favorite stories. I love MacLean's writing, and I agree with you: he seems to waste no words, saying everything necessary and nothing unnecessary. So...this looks to me like a fairly out-there comparison. As I said way above, I don't accept the argument that Keanu's acting is economical, I think, rather, that he frequently tries too hard. Also - and forgive me in advance - but Norman MacLean's work met nearly universal acclaim, and Keanu Reeves is widely considered one of the worst actors working today. The fact that lots of people think he sucks is one of the reasons this site exists. Try comparing him to the Zen art of calligraphy next. You're a partisan, and you're right, chacun a son gout. What you say in the end is fair enough: I need to see more of his work.

7. Allhailkingjack - by the strictest definition, and I think Anakin might agree with me, I'm not a troll. While it's true I wanted to debate, my purpose was also to understand, because as I wrote above, after seeing Dracula again I had trouble comprehending the existence of this little enclave of yours. Trolls like to provoke emotional responses that are off-topic. I would like to stay on topic and see if I can be moved. Everything you said after 'troll' was appreciated, thanks.

8. Mme Renard - River's Edge, yes, looks good. I evidently have not seen his best work.

9. Luca - fair point re blaming the actor vs blaming the director, no rebuttal. Regarding Keanu demonstrating toughness (and in this case I use the word "demonstrating" pejoratively, as a synonym for "indicating", "projecting", etc...all meaning the opposite of "being" and "feeling"). Here's where I go back to the point I made to Mme Renard: I don't think he's economical or simple in these roles that I am critiquing. I think he's obviously trying to demonstrate something rather than trusting his own truth and the material. And the haircut - he could have also trusted that. The haircut made him look pretty bad ass, he didn't have to work so hard at the rest. You imply that his working hard at it was part of the character. Hmmmm....possibly; an interesting idea. I think if bad acting fits the story, then it works in that particular context, I guess. His poor technique aligned with a particular narrative logic that allowed you to believe that Keanu's discomfort matched with what you might expect the character to feel.

10. Allhailkingjack - no one is more real than Keanu? Well....no rebuttal. As Mme Renard said, chacun a son gout.

11. Mme Renard - I confess I liked Anthony Hopkins, Richard Grant, Winona Ryder, Tom Waits, and even Cary Elwes better than our young solicitor. I see it as some scenery chewing professionals (albeit with varying abilities)vs a severely outgunned junior-high amateur trying to remember his lines. And I think Oldman was wonderfully playful - captivating to watch. Amazing that he did that work in the same room with Keanu. Oldman's performance placed next to Keanu's in Dracula shows a delta skill only eclipsed by Emma Thompson v. Keanu in Much Ado. But as Anakin and others have fairly pointed out above, that was a long time ago.

I have to disagree with the general notion of Keanu as Zen master of non-acting, though. In Matrix, as in Much Ado, or Speed (skip Dracula, which you've stipulated) I see him working, not being. He is fairly muscular in his delivery, and purposeful in his movements. There are actors who appear to be still, to be a blankness upon which we can project our notions of character, to effortlessly blend. Keanu's blankness appears to me more as a lack of insight, a skating upon the surface - a dullness, not a blankness. And his characters, as he plays them, seem to project things rather than allowing them to be seen. Neo is no exception. Even when he is trying to be blank - e.g. the cop-killing scene - he projects an image of a kid trying to 'play' cool. Watch how he's moving when he pulls the pistols from his waist: stiff, swaggering. Fine - but not minimalist. In that scene I can accept that Neo might be having fun....although that could open another discussion. Anyway, there are plenty of half-assed actors out there doing un-smiling monotone. Project your fantasies at will.

I like your description of bad and good acting. But I'd disagree that bad actors do what shouldn't be done - and that's it. Bad actors also do more than should be done, and I think, contrary to your argument, that Keanu Reeves does more than should be done when he is acting badly. He works at demonstrating 'hard-boiled cop' in his first scene in Speed, chomping on his gum. His choices seem like the first ideas of a high school kid, lacking nuance.

And as he lacks depth, I also think that he lacks range: in other words, I don't think he can easily touch a broad spectrum of emotion, at least comfortably. I can't recall him being giddy in a movie, or being utterly destroyed. I think he lacks the imagination for it. If there's a performance out there that contradicts me let me know. At any rate, because I believe he demonstrates a lack of range and depth, I think your argument of non-acting is a cop-out: he CAN'T act, and so he's at his best when he just says the lines. But then....well I'll come to that later.

Here's the key failure in his performance as Neo: he never, ever provides any reason for Trinity to love him. That's on the writers/directors as well, but a better actor would have given us a nugget to make sense of the pivotal resurrection scene - it would probably only take a few moments. But because Keanu seems to lack insight as an actor, I don't think he thought it was necessary. Love is inexplicable, sure. But since Trinity's love of Neo is pivotal to the story, his connection to her needs to be established, and Keanu is at least partly responsible for the fact that it never is. Maybe he thought that his good looks and his hero status (in the story) were enough. I liked the movie, but upon subsequent viewings, that scene always plays false to me, and I don't think it's Carrie Ann Moss's fault.

Rather than finding him a simple everyman upon whom I can project my fantasies, I see an earnest dummy whom I usually have trouble believing, because he's trying too hard to be still, or sweet, or tough, or mean, or whatever. Some of that is because he sounds dumb; i.e. something in his inflections never gets too far from the beach. (Similarly, no matter how many times Stallone talks about Poe and art, I have a tough time seeing him as a scholar). But some of it is because I think he struggles to simply BE his characters.

This brings me back to the idea that he's at his best when he just says his lines (2 paragraphs up). For me, that means he's nothing but an attractive prop. So I would argue not that he's a non-actor, but that he's actually more like scenery. But that, also, is at his best. Usually I don't think he's content to just be there: he works at it. Which, contrary to your argument, disrupts the narrative rather than advancing it.

I don't think the Matrix sucked. Nor do I think Dracula sucked. But I do think Keanu did, in both. I was an actor, had many paying gigs over the course of several years, was in the union, etc. I was bush-league and pretty much low-talent. Now I'm an engineer. I think I could elucidate Keanu's terrible work from either vantage point. I haven't seen all of his movies by a long shot, but I've seen many of his popular ones. His work in Dracula is among his most disruptively bad, so I chose to log my first post here. His work in Much Ado is equally jarring to me, but it looks like few people are interested in talking about it. The typical Keanu critic generally thinks he was bad in most of his movies but "he was okay in 'The Matrix'", and that's about where I stand...except that I think his innocuous performance in that movie was more about successful casting than acting skill. And there is one massive failure in his performance that can't be easily ignored.

Anyway, if anyone is interested in explaining why his work in Dracula (or the Matrix or Speed or Much Ado) was good, I'll see if I can be convinced, but I'll also probably tell you why I think you're wrong. I haven't seen Private Idaho or Parenthood in a long time, but I seem to remember him being okay in those. I've read that he's good in The Gift - I would suspect well cast, well coached, and well-edited. Just because I think he's a bad actor doesn't mean that he can't occasionally stumble into a decent performance, if the stars align.

Lastly, as to my criticisms, for now I'll say that I don't think all his characters are exactly alike, or that his expressions are all the same, or that he's a horrible person. I do think his acting generally has a pervasive lumbering (as in wood, get it, he chuckled, buckling on his lollerskates) quality to it. But I also think he is generally energetic (he tries) and earnest (he really wants to try). He's also good-looking, which means people like to look at him, and has a decent voice, both of which make him a useful addition to a movie if he's properly deployed. Lord only knows what Coppola was thinking - maybe he thought Harker had to be vapid not to run screaming from the castle after dinner, and no one plays vapid better than Keanu. My theory on Much Ado is that Branagh was trying to prove that British actors are better than Americans and Keanu was central to his thesis. Mean, but effective. Dracula probably gave him the idea - because you can't watch the scenes between Gary Oldman and Keanu without thinking it.