The Keanu Reeves Project - Something's Gotta Give

Something's Gotta Give (2003) - Dr. Julian Mercer

So, I am clearly the wrong demographic for the target audience of this movie as I am a) under 50, b) straight and c) a man, so my opinion of this movie is clearly going to be colored by that.  Nancy Meyers is not making movies for me, and that's just fine.  I've seen and really enjoyed "Father of the Bride" (when I was a child) and I've seen and hated "What Women Want" and that might be my entire history of her movies because, once again, Nancy Meyers is not making movies for me.  And once again, that's just fine.

I knew I was going to hate this movie when the opening sequence was a voiceover of Jack Nicholson talking about young women while the song "Butterfly" by Crazy Town played.  If you were around in 1999, surely you remember this song, and if your feelings towards it are anything other than overwhelming antipathy, well then you should find the nearest bridge to jump off.  The only song that was released in 1999-2000 worse than this song might be "Last Resort" by Papa Roach, and I'm not even sure which one is more putrid.

With this as the backdrop to open the movie, I knew I was in for a long, long two hours and ten minutes.

In the beginning, we are introduced to Jack Nicholson who plays Harry, an extremely wealthy 60-something year old who exclusively dates women under 30, and is currently in the midst of a fling with Marin, played by Amanda Peet.  Despite his enormous wealth (which I'll get to), it genuinely seems that Marin is actually interested in Harry for his "charm" and not his money, which is of course ludicrous on its face.  Harry and Marin are headed to Marin's mother's lovely house in the Hamptons for a fun weekend away from the city, and in the opening scene they are on the verge of consummating their new relationship when they realize that they are not alone in the house.

No, Marin's mother and sister happen to be there as well, played by Diane Keaton and a severely underutilized Frances McDormand and after a "hilarious" meeting where Erica (Diane Keaton) threatens to call the police on Harry, they all agree to just spend the weekend in the house together because no, this is not awkward at all.

Okay, time for a very quick aside before I start ranting about how much I hate this movie -

NONE of the main characters (except for maybe Keanu Reeves, who I will get to momentarily) are remotely relatable and all seem to come from absurd wealth.  Erica is apparently a world-renowned playwright (is that even a thing in 2003?  Perhaps I'm not cultured enough to believe that more than a very small handful of people are making it big enough as playwrights to own beautiful, spacious vacation homes in the Hamptons), Marin is an auctioneer who sells $50 million dollars of art a few times a week for a living and....Jack Nicholson is the owner of a hip hop record label which truly strains credulity.

Anyway.  So on the first night at the house, Harry and Marin are about to bone down but guess what?  He has a heart attack and is rushed to the hospital where we finally meet our hero, Keanu Reeves.

It's time to breakout your Keanu BINGO cards, we've already hit many of your regular movie occupations: cop, ad executive, lawyer, and football player, but we've now hit the BINGO with emergency room doctor, woo hoo!

After a "hilarious" scene at the hospital where we are meant to laugh at the old "old man's ass in a hospital robe gag," Harry is discharged but not before Dr. Keanu tells him that he's in no condition to travel back to the city and has to stay at Erica's house for a few extra days.

Oh, and before I forget and because it is integral to the story, Dr. Keanu and Erica have a meet cute where we find out that not only is he basically her biggest fan, but he's very obviously openly flirting with her because as an ER doctor, he has nothing better to do.



Once again, please sustain your disbelief that this very handsome and charming ER doctor a) knows who Erica is by name, b) has seen ALL of her plays and c) finds himself immediately attracted to a woman who is 25 years older than him.

Look, I'm all for role reversals, after all that's really at the heart of this movie, but Dr. Keanu comes across as so awestruck by her immediately that it is beyond absurd.

So Harry has to live with Erica, while his new lady friend has to return back home to the city.  Can you guess what happens next?  Well, at first Harry and Erica don't get along at all but then, shock of all shocks, they get to know each other and then they DO get along!  Wow!

If you simply have another heart attack and die now, we can end this movie an hour early

After they bone down, Harry admits to Erica that he's truly fallen for her in a way he's never fallen for any woman in his 50+ years of adulthood and she's falling for him too.  Super.

"What's so funny?"  NOT this movie.

Oh, there's just one problem and it's not the one you might think it is.  See, Marin is out of the picture as she amicably breaks things off with Harry.  No, the problem is that Erica has started dating Dr. Keanu.

One of the biggest problems I have with this movie is how the two main characters are portrayed, or at least how we're told they are portrayed.  Harry is supposed to be this chauvinist philanderer who sleeps around with young women and then leaves them on the side of the road and Erica is supposed to be this charming woman who just needs the right guy to come along after her divorce.  But here's the thing: NONE of this is actually shown in the movie.  Harry IS rather charming, smart and honest with the women he dates and Erica is a complete fucking asshole, which I'll get into more in a minute.

Anyway, Harry gets the go-ahead to head back home and leaves while Erica continues working on her play which just happens to be about all of the events so far in this movie because there is nothing original about any of this.  Oh, but she's sad when he leaves and for about two minutes I was tormented by this scene of Diane Keaton attempting to cry and seriously, this is an abomination of film.

When Harry returns to New York, he seems to be going about his old ways.  He's throws a big party at his house, full of young and attractive people, which I also took a huge offense to because there is not a SINGLE PERSON OF COLOR to be seen.  The man owns a hip hop record label and doesn't know a single black person?  Must be great music he's putting out.



Sometime after the party, Erica receives a call from Marin, who is upset because her father (Erica's ex husband) is getting remarried to a 30 something year old who he has known for three weeks, something else I'll get back to in just a second because I'm not convinced that Nancy Meyers has no concept of how personal relationships work in reality.  Erica begrudgingly agrees to go to dinner with her ex, his fiancee and Marin in the city, but in turn completely STANDS UP Dr. Keanu for their second date and we get to see him sitting alone at a restaurant, completely crestfallen over this, which again is patently absurd.

And would you even believe that at the dinner with the ex, guess who shows up with a hot young woman?  No, not Vanilla Ice, but Harry!  Erica gets so upset at the sight of him that she runs out of the restaurant (not bothering to tell Marin that she's leaving because again, DIANE KEATON IS THE ASSHOLE IN THIS MOVIE) with Harry in tow trying to get her to calm down.  They both proclaim love for the other one but Harry can't be in a relationship with her because that's just not how he rolls.

Great.

Erica returns to the Hamptons to finish her play and for WHATEVER REASON, Dr. Keanu decides to give HER a second chance because Nancy Meyers has no understanding of human behavior.


An actual scene from this movie

My feeling of disdain through the first two acts of this movie turned to absolute hatred during act three when the following things happen:

We get a montage of Erica finishing her play while dating Dr. Keanu, followed by Harry out on yet another date with yet another young woman who tells him that she's auditioning for this hilarious play where she's about to bang this older man but he has a heart attack.  Harry figures out this is Erica's play and crashes auditions to confront her.  Erica basically tells him that this is her story and that the version of him she's using is mostly fictional even though it's clear that this isn't the case.

After this nonsense, we get one of these

Harry shows up to Marin's apartment to say hi and we learn that Marin is now three months pregnant, and married, because once again in the Nancy Meyers universe, everyone can meet someone, fall in love, and have a baby in about a week's time.  Harry asks how Erica is doing and Marin tells him that she's actually off on a vacation in Paris, a place that Harry and Erica had talked about visiting together back when they spent two lovely days together.

Because, once again, the characters in this movie are uber wealthy and are in no way, shape, or form relatable to actual human beings, Harry jaunts off to Paris to profess his love for Erica.

He is somehow able to track her down at a restaurant in Paris (I mean, how many restaurants can there be in Paris?  Six?  Seven?) and turns on the old Jack Nicholson charm.  He tells her that after their confrontation at the audition he decided to take a trip to the Caribbean, but after less than a day he realized that wasn't the trip he needed.  No, the trip he needed was down Memory Lane.  So he goes back home to reunite with ALL OF THE WOMEN HE'S EVER DATED to learn from them about himself, which is so fucking asinine that the only reason I didn't throw a brick through my television is because I don't keep bricks lying around my home.

After giving her this entire speech, there's just one problem.  Dr. Keanu, handsome as ever, shows up to the restaurant and sits down!  And rather than say something along the lines of "Oh, Harry, it's super fucking weird that you're here," Dr. Keanu invites Harry to stay for dinner!

Keanu or Jack Nicholson...how is this even a choice?

So they all have dinner together, we learn that Dr. Keanu and Erica are engaged, and this SHOULD be the end of this insipid movie.

But no, it's not.

They all leave and Harry is walking alone in Paris when a cab shows up and Erica steps out.  He asks her, "Hey, where's Dr. Keanu?" and she tells him that when they got back to their hotel, Dr. Keanu told her he can tell that she's still in love with Harry and to go be with him or some total utter fucking nonsense like that.  Once again, ERICA IS THE ASSHOLE OF THIS MOVIE.  Lady, you just spend the last six months of your life with Dr. Keanu, who has been nothing but charming and wonderful this entire time, and you ditch him in Paris for a man you spent four days with.  Fuck you.

And then we cut to another dinner scene with Erica, Harry, and Marin and her husband and new baby all out together because fuck you movie-watcher, that's why.

Ugh.

I've written a lot on this piece of shit movie but just a few scattered thoughts:

*Keanu Reeves is literally the only good part of this movie.  He comes off as totally charming and delightful and it's absolute bullshit how his character is treated in this and that Erica isn't seen as anything other than a villain in this movie.

*The award for biggest waste of talent in a film goes to Frances McDormand who might have a total of four minutes of screen time in this.  If you're going to put Frances McDormand in your movie, maybe, I don't know, try using her a little bit.

"Don't mind me, I'll be out of this movie momentarily."

*A brief list of May/December relationships in this movie for those who weren't keeping track: Harry and Marin, Dr. Keanu and Erica, Erica's ex-husband and his new wife, Harry and everyone, Harold and Maude.

*Erica's play sounds downright awful and I truly fail to believe that she's made millions of dollars off her writing
.

*Why does Harry own a hip hop label?  It's a fucking movie, it's fictional, he could be wealthy from literally anything because it never comes into play for any reason.  He lives in New York, make him a fucking retired finance guy or a retired CEO or a retired super villain, it literally DOES NOT MATTER, why oh why the founder and owner of a hip hop label for a guy who looks like he spends most of his time playing golf and listening to smooth jazz?

Have you seen my friends Method Man or Old Dirty Bastard?

*If you would like to watch an actual funny movie that features traditional gender role reversal, might I suggest "Harold and Maude" to you? 

*I could rant about this for another 500 words but I won't so I'll just leave with the closing thought that this movie really fucking sucks.

Box Office Information: $125 Million Domestic ($186 Million inflation adjusted)/ $142 Million international for a total of $266 Million worldwide on a budget of $80 Million which just goes to show that writing and producing trash like this can still make you rich and famous.  Nancy Meyers should be required by law to return every cent she made from this.  This mainly ran in theaters from December 2003 - February 2004 so it's a little misleading to say what rank this was in either year, but $266 Million worldwide is really impressive regardless.

Rotten Tomatoes: 72% Critic/69% Audience because sure, why not.  If you're looking for escapism bullshit with no grounding in reality then fine.

IMDB: 6.7

My Movie Rating: 3/10.  What, could you not tell that I hated this?

Keanu Rating: 9/10.  Seriously, Keanu is the only good part in this movie even if his character's actions and motivations make absolutely no sense.  Seriously, he knows and has seen ALL of her plays, continues to date a woman 25 years older than him AFTER she stands him up for a date, takes her on a trip to Paris and seemingly (off-screen) is totally cool with her leaving him for a man she honestly barely knows.  All that said, he's actually quite delightful in this movie and it's a shame how dirty they did his character in this.

Up Next: "Thumbsucker" - a movie I meant to watch 15 years ago and never got around to.  I don't even remember what it's about anymore. 

The Keanu Reeves Project - The Matrix Revolutions

The Matrix Revolutions (2003) - Neo

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have avoided both "Matrix" sequels for the last 17 years based on the advice of my friend who told me upon seeing "Reloaded" to never watch these movies.  So it comes as no surprise that I've been spending the last four days avoiding writing this post on "The Matrix Revolutions."

If "The Matrix Reloaded" was a passable movie (though far from good), "The Matrix Revolutions" is just a total fucking disaster.  Between all of the logical fallacies, the nonsensical story, the horrid execution, the overabundance of CGI, the gigantic lack of your movie's main star, the introduction of new (and useless) characters...this movie is utter garbage.

This isn't even to mention that this movie borrows heavily from a number of other film franchises, the ones that immediately come to mind include "The Terminator," "Star Wars," and "Alien."

I could write a few thousand words about all of the logical problems with this movie and how it makes no fucking sense but that would require me to really sit back and think more about this and the last four and a half hours I've spent watching these two sequels has been enough for me.

Here's a super fast synopsis -

The movie picks up right where the previous one left off, except now Neo is in some sort of Matrix purgatory, sitting around in a train station waiting for the Train Man (because why not introduce more new characters) to bring him back to where he belongs.  Trinity and Morpheus go back to see the Merovingian to get him back (after a shockingly slow foot chase with the aforementioned Train Man), Neo goes to see the Oracle again (except the original actress has died in the actual real world of reality outside this movie and been replaced with a much weaker actress), and there is what feels like a four hour long CGI battle of the machines versus Zion and it is unwatchable trash.

In the end, Neo sacrifices himself to save humanity through a truce with the machines, but basically who gives a shit and it doesn't matter anyway because we've learned that this is all a big never-ending repeating cycle and there's a zero percent chance that the peace actually lasts.

It is all very, very stupid and only made worse by all of the CGI, pointless arcs and general idiocy.

I don't even want to write more about this so I'm just going to add in a handful of notes about the variety of shittiness of "Revolutions:"

*They introduce us to a character, I don't even know his name because there are seemingly 800 cast members in this, who I'll just refer to as "the kid" who is 16 years old and wants to help fight for Zion.  But he's too young and the commander doesn't want him to fight (even though one would think this is sort of an all hands on deck situation given that, you know, if the humans don't win then everyone literally dies) so guess what?  Of course he helps save the day in the end!  WHO COULD HAVE GUESSED OR CARED?

More new characters!  Because FUCK YOU, that's why!

*Hey, guys in mech suits!  Does this remind you of anything?  HINT: IT'S "ALIEN."

James Cameron would like his money back

*Hey, another scene with the Merovingian!  Because the 90,000 person rave in the last movie wasn't enough, lets put him in some sort of club to make another rave scene!  Except this time with a BDSM theme because fuck you, that's why!

*Why does nobody seem to realize that Bane is acting funny when he wakes up?  If you've not seen the movie (and seriously, don't), Bane is the guy that Agent Smith inhabits in the real world in "Reloaded."  As such, when he wakes up in the real world, the actor playing Bane basically starts doing his best Hugo Weaving impression (which actually might be the BEST part of the movie) and nobody seems to wonder why Bane has essentially taken on an entirely new personality.  I get that most people he interacts with in the real world have never met Agent Smith in the Matrix.  But when Bane confronts Neo, a person whom he has interacted with extensively, it seriously takes Neo FOR-FUCKING-EVER to realize that Bane isn't Bane and that he's actually Agent Smith.  Bane calls Neo "Mr. Anderson" nearly a dozen times before Neo figures out what the fuck is going on.  Fuck this fucking movie.

Matrix-O-Vision because why not add in more CGI?

*I think my favorite character is someone I nicknamed "Bad News Andy Samberg."  I don't know who this guy is but every time he shows up it's just to give bad news about the attack on Zion.  "The machines have breached the walls," or "That EMP is going to destroy our defenses" or "Buckle up guys because there is still 90 minutes left in this movie."

Bad News Andy Samberg here with more bad news, Captain

*Neo commandeers a ship to go to Machine City (why do the machines even need a goddamn city?) where he confronts and makes peace with the machines by agreeing to take out Agent Smith who has become a super virus.  I only mention this because we get a very long scene of Neo in Machine City, which is entirely fucking stupid, where he meets and talks to the machines who have formed some sort of giant head out of sentinel robots because FUCK YOU, that's why.

Neo on his way to Machine City or whatever

Before COVD-19 hit, the news broke that a fourth movie is currently in pre-production and I say, "please, no."  I'm going to do everything in my power to forget the sequels ever existed in the first place.

BEST PART: I'm not sure she even speaks, but thanks for bringing Monica Belluci back for one scene.

The only good part of this movie

WORST PART: Take your fucking pick.  Because there are too many to choose from, I'm just going to go with the fifty hour long CGI battle of Zion, which of course is meaningless anyway because this is like the ninth time this has apparently happened, and it's going to just happen again.  Hopefully not in the Matrix Four.

Not part of the movie, this is Keanu's actual reaction to watching this on the big screen for the first time

Box Office Information: This movie made an astounding $139 Million Domestic ($210 Million inflation adjusted) and $288 Million international for $427 Million worldwide and was the 11th highest grossing movie of 2003.  "Revolutions" did beat it out as the 3rd highest grossing movie of the year behind only "Finding Nemo" and "Pirates: Curse of the Black Pearl."  All told, the Matrix Franchise made about $1.5 BILLION dollars, setting Keanu Reeves as well as the Wachowskis set for life, although I'm not convinced the latter two aren't complete hacks who somehow lucked into making one very good movie.

Rotten Tomatoes: 35% Critics, 60% Audience.  That first one feels close to accurate but that audience score...sorry but no.

IMDB: 6.8

My Movie Rating: Honestly, I want to give this a 1, but I reserve 1's and 2's for the worst of the worst like the Birdemics and the Spice Worlds of the world.  So I'm hitting this thing with a 2.5.

Keanu Rating:  I have no idea.  1?  10?  He doesn't even feature prominently in this thing as over half the movie is a CGI battle.  I'll split the difference and give him a 5.

Up Next:  The romantic comedy, "Something's Gotta Give" starring Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton.  I have no idea how much Keanu is in this thing and I have a feeling that I need to be 15 or 20 years older to enjoy this.  But I did used to really like "As Good as it Gets" so maybe this won't be terrible.

The Keanu Reeves Project - The Matrix Reloaded

The Matrix Reloaded (2003) - Neo

On the evening of May 16, 2003, I had just parked my car at a lot at the University of Maryland, on my way to my girlfriend's apartment when I received a phone call on my brand new cell phone (it was a Nokia I believe, and text messages wouldn't come into usage for about a year).  It was my good friend Russell, a person with whom I shared very similar taste in nearly everything, including our appreciation of Keanu Reeves even if I might have liked him juuuuuust a bit more.

Our conversation was brief but I remember it pretty well even though it happened more than 17 years ago.  He had just gotten out of the theater, having seen "The Matrix Reloaded" on its opening weekend.  Russ asked me what I thought about "The Matrix."

"Dude, you know I love The Matrix," I said.

"I know, it was rhetorical.  Well, never see the sequel." he replied.

"Really, it's bad?"

"Dude, Neo is flying around like Superman.  It sucked.  Don't ever watch it, it'll ruin the original for you."

And on that note, I never bothered to watch "The Matrix Reloaded," or "The Matrix Revolutions" because if they were as bad as Russ said they were, why should I even bother?  There's nothing like having one of your favorite movies ruined for you by a very shitty sequel (which is why I'm still feeling really hesitant about "Bill and Ted Face the Music").

Several years later, I returned the favor when I told Russell to never watch "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," by giving him two words only: "Dude.  Aliens."

In all honesty, I almost thought about skipping over both of these movies for this project, but I feel like this whole thing wouldn't be complete without them so I bit the bullet and just finished "Reloaded."

Sadly, we lost Russ to cancer almost two years ago and all I want to do right now is call him up to tell him that yes, Neo flying around like Superman is really fucking stupid.  I'm sure he would have gotten a kick out of that.

Russ wasn't completely right though, "The Matrix Reloaded" wasn't as bad as he had made me expect and I don't think it's ruined "The Matrix" for me, although I've still got one movie to go.

"Reloaded" and "Revolutions" were filmed at the same time and apparently could have been released as one movie, much like "Kill Bill" volumes 1 and 2, with the former released later that same year, but why release a four hour movie when you can release two, two hour movies and make twice the money?  After all, "The Matrix" made a ton of money in 1999 and these were giant budget sequels.

Having just completed "Reloaded" I'm actually quite conflicted right now about how I even feel about this movie, so I'm just going to have to break this thing down the best I can.

In short, the movie takes place shortly after the events of "The Matrix," the evil computers are ready to descend on and destroy Zion, the last human city on the planet and despite a command from above him.  Rather than follow orders and stay behind to defend Zion, Morpheus chooses to take his crew (including Neo) to see the Oracle again.

Meanwhile, Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) is now some sort of "rogue" computer program who is able to replicate himself inside the Matrix which apparently also translates to the real world when he takes over the body of some guy named Bane inside the Matrix (no relation to the Batman villian) right before he goes back to the real world, thus controlling his actual body.  Sure, whatever.

Neo goes to see the Oracle, who tells him that he needs to take down the mainframe by finding "The Keymaster" who is currently being held hostage by some guy named "The Merovingian" (which is a really stupid name for this guy).  Neo and crew rescue the Keymaster, who when we meet him is literally making a key, there's a big chase sequence on a freeway and everyone we care about escapes.

So it's not just a clever nickname?

Morpheus, Neo and the Keymaster break into some building to access the mainframe in order to take the machines down, the Keymaster is killed, Trinity is killed while trying to save everyone (but revived by Neo) and Neo meets "The Architect" who gives what feels like a 20 minute convoluted speech about the Matrix and human choice and other shit that should have been completely unnecessary to this aside from going deeper into the mythology of this world.

It turns out that this is actually the sixth iteration of the Matrix and Neo needs to decide between saving Trinity and saving the world.  He chooses the former, they go back to the real world and all of a sudden Neo's superpowers translate there as well as he's able to stop a bunch of machine sentinels using only his mind, however this also sends him into a coma and the movie ends with him lying down next to Bane/Agent Smith.

Now that I've typed out this entire plot, I take it back, this movie isn't very good.  A bit of a further breakdown:


THE GOOD

*SOME of the effects and action sequences in this movie are spectacular.  The introduction of "The Twins" and their shapeshifting/transforming/turning into ghosts/werewolves/smoke monsters/whatever they are is pretty cool.

Double your pleasure, double the fun!

*The freeway action sequence is completely over-the-top with cars flipping and flying everywhere, fights on top of semis, bullets flying everywhere, and a katana wielding Lawrence Fishburne.  I'm guessing without seeing the final movie yet that this will end up being the best action sequence in all three movies.

Hope they remembered to get the insurance for the rental.

*Monica Belluci as The Merovingian's girlfriend.  Why a rogue computer program needs a girlfriend in The Matrix is your guess as good as mine, but I'll take any reason to cast Monica Belluci in a form fitting dress for any reason you want in your movie.

THE BAD

*SOME of the effects and action sequences in this movie are terrible.  The first battle sequence of Neo versus a thousand Agent Smiths starts pretty cool but quickly devolves into one gigantic CGI mess.  Most of this sequence was completely without practical effects, something the first movie feasted on and part of why it was as good as it was.  Instead, we get treated to seven minutes of computer generated Keanu Reeves fighting a bunch of computer generated Hugo Weaving, and it was really, really bad.

*Some of the plot devices in this...ugh.  The Architect is kind of stupid, but what's even stupider is there are still a bunch of people who are skeptical that Neo is actually "The One."  Like, have you seen him fly?

*Speaking of flying, Russell was dead-on about this.  Neo flying around everywhere is really fucking stupid.  Neo uses his Superman power to save the day, by my count, not once, not twice, but three times.  He rescues Morpheus and the Keymaker during the chase sequence; he flies away from the thousand Smiths in that fight sequence; he flies himself, Morpheus and the Keymaker away from all the Smiths and into the server room or whatever; and he saves Trinity when she's falling out of a building and catches her before she hits the ground.  Wait, did I say three times?  That makes four.  It's REALLY fucking stupid and I hated it all so much.

THE COMPLETELY FUCKING WEIRD

*Yo, what the fuck is Cornell West, civil rights professor and activist, doing in this movie??  I was so confused by this that I just had to do a little research and if you care enough you can read the same article I found here.  In short, his writings influenced the Wachowskis on this movie, so okay sure.

Sir, you are in the WRONG FILM

*There is a very long sequence in Zion that is just a full-on rave.  It's fucking weird, out of place, wholly unnecessary, and completely fucking stupid.

Party like it's 2199

*When Neo and Morpheus meet the Merovingian, he's sitting in a restaurant where he explains to them he's sent a "special" desert to some other lady, who eats it and immediately has an orgasm (we see this because the camera changes to "Matrix Mode" inside of her legs.  It is completely fucking weird.  Seriously, watch this shit and please explain to me why this sequence is in your movie.

I'll have what she's having!

And just a few more scattered thoughts:

*I read that Keanu Reeves made $250 MILLION dollars from the "The Matrix" franchise.  I mean, good for him, but that is fucking crazy.

*Apparently, a lot more of this movie (and the third movie) make a lot more sense if you had played the "Matrix" video game AND watched the animated film, "The Animatrix." Sorry, but if I need to have played a video game and watched another movie entirely (a prequel, I believe) in order to appreciate your movie, you have FAILED as a filmmaker.

Box Office Information: Buckle the fuck up, this movie made $281 Million domestic ($425 Million inflation adjusted) and $457 Million International for a total of $738 MILLION dollars.  For a time, it was the #1 R rated movie of all time, but currently stands at #4 behind "Joker," "Deadpool" and "Deadpool 2."  The budget was $150 Million, so yeah, you could say this was a pretty massive success financially.

Rotten Tomatoes: 73% Critics/72% Audience.

IMDB: 7.2.

My Movie Rating: I'm torn, my first thought after watching it was to give this a 6.5, but after writing this post I'm realizing that I liked it far less than I originally thought.  "The Matrix" could have and should have stood on its own, but that movie made a ton of money and it was inevitable that a sequel would be coming.  I do feel like this movie certainly takes away from the original as I don't particularly care for or need the mythology behind all of this.  The action sequences were a mixed bag, but relied far too much on CGI and less on practical effects, and there was just so much silliness in it, which is why I'm bumping this thing down to a 5.

That'll buff right out

Keanu Rating: Interesting, Keanu Reeves didn't even seem to feature too prominently in this.  Yes, he had a long sequence with the Oracle and the Architect and he had a few of his own fight sequences, but I feel like other characters like Morpheus and Trinity played just as important if not more important roles in this. Again, I don't really know what to score him, the man has clearly beefed up his fighting skills and for that alone I'm going to give him a 7.

Up Next: Well, it's "The Matrix Revolutions," of course and I'm a little worried.

The Keanu Reeves Project - Hardball

HARDBALL (2001) - Conor O'Neill

As always, full spoilers ahead.

I can't remember exactly what movie it was, but I do remember seeing a trailer for the 2001 movie "Hardball" and thinking to myself, "This looks terrible."

And while not entirely awful, "Hardball," apparently based on a true story, is more mediocre fare which also happened to be released the weekend following 9/11.  I can't even imagine the mental state of anyone who actually went to see this movie in the theater that weekend.

"Hey, you know what will distract me from the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor?  Going to see a shitty movie about Keanu Reeves teaching a bunch of 10 year old kids from inner city Chicago how to play baseball!"

So what the fuck is this movie?

Keanu Reeves plays Conor (one 'N') O'Neill, a down-on-his-luck sports better and ticket scalper, who, when the movie begins, apparently owes a bunch of money to a couple of bookies in and around Chicago.  And for WHATEVER REASON, one of the bookies happens to run a bar that Conor likes to hang out at, despite the fact that he owes this man thousands of dollars.  Needless to say, this particular bookie doesn't love that a deadbeat gambler keeps showing up at his bar without the money he supposedly owes.

Throughout the movie, we see Conor make a handful of bets which happen to ALWAYS be on Chicago Bulls games because apparently he has zero creativity and can't look beyond one sport in the city he happens to live in.  But placing bets on the 2000/2001 Bulls?  These guys?

Notably missing: any good players

At one point in the movie he takes the Bulls +6 over the Miami Heat.  For both of my readers of this blog, neither of whom probably have much in the way of basketball knowledge from the 2000 - 2001 NBA Season, the bulls starting lineup consisted of:

Ron Artest, Elton Brand, Ron Mercer, Michael Ruffin and Khalid El-Amin.  This is not a good lineup.  For fuck's sake, Fred Fucking Hoiberg started 37 games for this team!  

Superstar Fred Hoiberg

This guy both looks and sounds like someone who should be doing my taxes, not starting for a professional basketball team.

The Bulls were notoriously bad the first few years following Michael Jordan's departure, and in 2001 had a record of of 15-67.  If you are not a sports fan I'll just let you know that's NOT good.

Meanwhile, the Miami Heat went 50-32 that season, and also happened to DESTROY the Bulls in the four games they played.

My point is, Keanu Reeves is such a shitty fucking gambler in this movie that he bets money on the Bulls to win a game over the Heat, and even getting six points is nowhere near enough for this to make any sense.  No wonder he's in so much debt.

I'm sorry, I appear to have gotten a little sidetracked.

Anyway, Conor has a friend that works at a big investment bank (or something), who he tries to borrow money from in order to pay off his debts and not get killed.  However, instead of giving Conor money, his buddy gives him a job for $500 a week coaching a little league baseball team because sure, that makes sense.

I am your baseball league coach!

At no point do we the audience know if Conor knows the first thing about baseball, what qualifies him to be a coach, or what the point of any of this is.  He owes bookies something like $20,000 and he's only making $500 a week, so even if he uses ALL of his money to pay off his debts he still needs to coach for nearly a year.  Not to mention that the guy has, you know, living expenses.

Lucky for him though, that bet I mentioned earlier actually pays off about halfway through the movie so we don't really have to worry about any of this.

Like any sports movie featuring children, you can probably guess the entire story.  Conor comes in and the team is TERRIBLE, but guess what?  By the end, they're really good and even win the championship!  Hooray!

There are a handful of subplots that nobody cares about (except for one which I'll get to momentarily) including: the rough life in the inner city for these kids, Michael B. Jordan (in his film debut) having to leave the team because he's too old so he joins a gang (never to be seen from again in this) and what I assume is supposed to be a romantic subplot featuring the incomparable Diane Lane which is completely pointless and goes absolutely nowhere.

I'm just here for the paycheck

But the absolute worst part of this movie, is that after 90 minutes of nonsense, this movie has the goddamn nerve to kill an 8 year old kid by a stray bullet and try to get me to cry when Keanu Reeves gives a eulogy at his funeral.  HOW DARE this movie toss this in at the very end to attempt to turn a light drama into a pathetic tearjerker.  Fuck you, "Hardball."  

G-Baby, moments away from being shot in the chest

I cannot express how angry this made me.  The entire movie borders on attempting to say something meaningful about these kids lives and the difficulties of growing up in the projects, and leaves us with this kid getting shot and killed.  FUCK YOU, "HARDBALL."

Some stray thoughts:

*One of the bookies that Conor owes money to is just called "The Barber," which doesn't sound nearly as menacing as they make him out to be.  When I hear "The Barber" all I can think of is this guy.

Terrifying

*I touched on it a bit above, but Diane Lane is astonishingly wasted in this movie and she's the first female lead to perform in this series that I can think of who has ZERO chemistry with Keanu.

*Aww, just look at this guy!

WHERE'S WALLACE?

BEST PART: Early in the film, instead of getting his ass kicked by his bookie, Conor decides to beat himself up and throws his head through a window.  It's sort of hilarious and probably should have killed him.

WORST PART: The completely unnecessary murder of G-Baby and this movie trying to get me to cry.  FUCK YOU, "HARDBALL."

BONUS WORST PART: Keanu dancing to "Big Poppa" by Notorious BIG.  Unfortunately, the only clip I can find of this online appears to be in Russian, but check it out anyway.  It's...depressing.

BONUS WORST PART 2: Conor O'Neill?  Is Keanu supposed to be Irish?  What the fuck?

Box Office Information: $40 Million Domestic/$3 Million International for $43 Million Worldwide ($64 Million domestic inflation adjusted) on a $21 Million budget.  This is actually fairly impressive for it being released on what ended up being one of the worst weekends to open a movie, ever.

Rotten Tomatoes: 41% Critics/70% Audience.  Sure.

IMDB: 6.4

My Movie Rating: 4/10.  Completely forgettable yet irredeemable for the last ten minutes.

Keanu Rating: 5/10.  I don't know, he's not good, he's not bad, but he is definitely the world's worst gambler.

Up Next: Well, it's time for "The Matrix" sequels, filmed together but released six months apart, I never actually saw these movies for a reason I'll explain in the next post.

The Keanu Reeves Project - Sweet November

SWEET NOVEMBER (2001) - Nelson Moss

Long time readers of this project (both of you) probably already know my general feeling about Keanu Reeves as a romantic lead.  That is, I hate it.

There aren't a lot of other movies in this genre so far, the only two I can think of off the top of my head are "A Walk in the Clouds," which was perfectly acceptable if not really my cup of tea and "Tune in Tomorrow," which was trash.  Unfortunately, I know I have at least a few more of these coming.

Okay..."Sweet November..."

Ugh.

I don't even want to write about this movie.

There is a wonderful movie I love called "They Came Together," which at least six other people on the planet have seen.  The movie basically spoofs every trope and cliche from every romcom ever made and it is the best.  I'd much rather spend the next twenty minutes of my life writing about that movie than "Sweet November," but unfortunately, that's not the plan.

The only reason I bring up this far superior movie is that the underlying joke about "They Came Together" is that they are actively and knowingly spoofing every trope in romantic comedies whereas "Sweet November" appears to be completely unaware of exactly what it is.

As always, complete spoilers ahead.

Okay, as a quick disclaimer, "Sweet November" is not a romantic comedy, it actually falls under a romantic sub-genre of movies referred to as "terminal romance," a thing I did not know existed until I started doing some cursory research before sitting down to write this.

A terminal romance is basically what it sounds like - it's a love story where someone is either going to die or is dying.  And apparently, there are a lot of movies like this, most of which I have never, and will never watch.  As far as I'm concerned, there is only one terminal romance movie that is any good, the 1971 movie "Harold and Maude," which is more or less a perfect movie.  And at least in that one, the person who is dying happens to be 70 years old and not, you know, a hot 20-something year old like most of the rest of these.

As an aside, I'm not sure if it counts because I've only seen the last few minutes, but "Remember Me" is sort of a surprise terminal romance, because at the end of the movie (SPOILERS FOR "REMEMBER ME" AHEAD), Robert Pattinson dies because of Surprise 9/11.  From my understanding, this has nothing to do with the previous 90 minutes of the movie, which is just such a ballsy (and absurd) way to end your romantic film.

What was I talking about?

Oh, right.  "Sweet November."  This fucking wretched movie.

Okay, so this movie is basically one giant cliche where a big-time ad exec (the first of MANY tropes and cliches), in this case played by our hero Keanu Reeves meets a manic pixie dream girl (in this case played by Charlize Theron), they have a short-lived romance, and then she dies from leukemia.

Everything about this movie sucks.

At one point I stopped counting tropes and cliches because I lost track, but here's a handful of them:

*Keanu as an ad executive (already mentioned, but just want to throw it in again because HOW MANY FUCKING AD EXES ARE PORTRAYED IN ROMANTIC MOVIES?)

*Non-committal leading man

*Dropping groceries during a meet cute (which I'll come back to momentarily)

*Sassy black secretary

*Eccentric manic pixie dream girl as leading woman

*Leading man is fired from job

*Running on the beach with dogs

*Autumn dating montage (expertly spoofed in "They Came Together)

*"I've known you for a month, let's get married!"

Because I really don't feel like writing much about this movie, let me just take a paragraph or two to talk about the meet cute, because it might be one of the dumbest ones in film history.

Keanu Reeves has to go to the DMV to renew his driver's license.  But apparently in San Francisco (oh, another trope), in order to renew your driver's license, you have to take a full-on written exam (there's no possible way this can be true, who the fuck wrote this movie?).  So Keanu Reeves leaves in the middle of a workday to head to the DMV.  He sits down to take his test in a room full of adults (no teenagers there to get their driver's license that day I guess), when Charlize walks in to take the test, but WHOOPS, spills her groceries all over him.

Oh, you know, just how we all renew our driver's licenses in 2001

Meanwhile, Keanu is apparently too stupid to know the answers to anything, so he tries to cheat off of her, but they are caught by the proctor, yet only Charlize is marched to the front of the room where she's told she has failed her test for cheating and needs to come back next month.  Then, because she's pissed off, she waits for Keanu at his car and demands he drive her around because he's the reason she didn't get her license renewed.

Um, excuse me miss, but do you mind getting the fuck off my car?

I mean the whole thing is completely fucking asinine.

Anyway, Keanu's girlfriend, Lauren Graham of  "Gilmore Girls" fame leaves him and Keanu gets fired from his job after a hot dog proposal gone horribly wrong (oh fuck, I guess I'll get back to that in a moment as well), so he decides to take Charlize Theron up on her offer to move in with her in her amazingly fancy apartment/house in the heart of San Francisco, because that's just a thing she does with a different guy every month because SHE'S JUST SO FUCKING ECCENTRIC (and also dying from cancer, which we find out about in the late second act).

He's got ten televisions to watch while he's on the treadmill, and they're all tuned to commercials because, DO YOU GET IT?  HE WORKS IN ADVERTISING!

Okay, back to the hot dog pitch for a second.  Keanu is supposed to be this big-time ad executive (we know this because he tells his boss he's won not one but TWO Clio awards), yet he's working on the big advertising campaign for...a hot dog company?  Yes, a hot dog company.

No, not THIS Cleo

Except the problem is that Keanu has way oversexualized hot dogs, loses the proposal, flips out, and gets fired by his boss.  This actually might be the best part of the movie, if only because of how over the top his performance is here.  Go ahead, watch for yourself.

Where was I?

Oh right, so Keanu movies in with Charlize at this point, because why not, and she teaches him to loosen up a little and the two of them fall in love.  When I found out she was dying of cancer I was actually a little happy because it meant that this movie was going to have to end at some point soon.

There are just so many other atrocious parts of this movie that if I wrote about all of them I'd be here for another three hours so I'm just going to mention two of the worst:

Charlize apparently knows everyone that lives on her block (because of course she does), including the latchkey kid named Abner that lives down the block (who the fuck names their kid Abner?).  There are maybe two scenes of Keanu with Abner (including a ludicrous remote controlled boat race where Keanu pays off someone with a remote controlled submarine to destroy all of Abner's opponents, I swear to god this is a thing that happens in this movie).  When Keanu tells Charlize that their deal is over and he wants out, she tells him that he has BECOME A FATHER FIGURE TO ABNER, A KID HE HAS HUNG OUT WITH ONCE, IN ORDER TO GUILT HIM INTO STAYING, WHICH WORKS.

Hey, Little Abner?  Get fucked.

There is also a scene that takes place during Thanksgiving, where Keanu climbs through her window, dressed (sort of) as Santa Claus, to deliver her 12 presents for Christmas, and this MOVIE HAS HIM ANNOUNCE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, with the penultimate present being a DISHWASHER THAT HE CLIMBED THROUGH A WINDOW WITH.

Merry Fucking Christmas.  To NOBODY.

I don't know if my tone is coming across or not, but this movie treats its audience with such little regard for intellectual capacity that it made me not only hate Charlize Theron in this movie, but Keanu as well.  

Anyway, the movie ends with Keanu and Charlize's last moment together before she disappears off-screen, only to (ostensibly) die from cancer within a few days.

This movie is atrocious.

Just a few side notes for this one because my head is about to explode:

*Charlize has a downstairs neighbor, who just happens to be...a rival ad exec to Keanu as well as a cross-dresser because why not, right?

This is a thing that happens, for no particular reason

*This movie plays the same exact Enya song TWICE.  Don't get me wrong, I love Enya as much as the next guy, but you couldn't find a second Enya song?  

*Keanu Reeves sings in this movie, and I'm near certain it's actually him singing.  I don't think you're going to be seeing him in Cats 2 anytime soon, but the man can carry a tune.

*If you're going to put Charlize Theron in your movie, why oh why are you going to have her dress like Frumplestiltskin throughout?  She looks like a hobo for most of this movie.

BEST PART: Keanu's rant, as embedded above.  It's so fucking stupid you just have to laugh.

WORST PART: Trope after trope, cliche after cliche, this movie is a fucking trainwreck.

Box Office Information: $25 Million Domestic/$40 Million international for $65 Million worldwide ($40 Million domestic inflated adjusted) on a $40 Million budget.  How?

Rotten Tomatoes: 15% Critic/75% Audience.  I have to say, I'm not surprised by these numbers because audiences are fucking stupid.

IMDB: 6.7.  Nope.

My Movie Rating: 2.5.  I hated just about every minute of this piece of garbage.

Keanu Rating: 5/10.  He's likable, I guess?  

Up Next: It's the 2001 movie, Hardball, which was released just after 9/11.  Never seen it but I can't imagine that bodes well.