The Keanu Reeves Project - Bill and Ted Face the Music (Part 2)

BILL AND TED FACE THE MUSIC (2020) - Ted "Theodore Logan

This is it.  My journey has come to an end.

All the way back at the start of April, with COVID just starting to ruin 2020, I decided to do something productive and creative with myself: watch Keanu Reeves' entire filmography and write (often far too long) recap posts on this once dormant blog.

Seven months and 59 movies later, I'm done.

Sure, I skipped a tiny segment of movies, none of which featured Keanu in any meaningful way but I think I more than made up for that by watching a bunch of movies I'd already seen before once again.

So here we are and isn't it fitting that this project concludes with the very, very, very long awaited sequel, "Bill and Ted Face the Music."

Now you might be saying to yourself, Jordan, didn't you already recap this movie?

Well, sort of.  I wrote a pretty brief post immediately after "Face the Music" came out but wanted to revisit this since my post was very short and entirely spoiler free for the small segment of folks who both read this blog and hadn't yet seen the movie.  I'll also try to keep this one on the brief side but there will certainly be some spoilers ahead.

I'm not going to rehash the last post other than to say that I had been waiting something like 11 years for "Face the Music" since they announced teasers for it all the way back in 2009 or 2010.  I watched it the second it came available to purchase, then again the next night, then again about a week later, and finally a fourth time for completion of this project. 

Once again, I'm not going to do a full-on recap of the movie, but instead I'd like to touch on the good and the bad of the newest and final (most likely) entry into the Bill and Ted universe.  Let's start with the bad - 

Okay, so there's not a lot of what I'd call "bad" in "Face the Music."  In fact, I'm shocked that this was as good as it was given that it had been nearly 30 years since Bogus Journey.  But there are a small handful of things that I didn't love:

*The daughters and their subplot.  Sorry, I wanted to enjoy this part of the movie a lot more than I did but in a lot of ways it felt like the movie was doing a condensed version of Excellent Adventure with two women doing their best to do impressions of the heroes of the first two movies and it just falls mostly flat.  I get what they were trying to do here, it just wasn't executed all that well.  I also thought Bridgette Lundy-Paine (Billie) did a much better job than Samara Weaving (Thea) even if neither one of them really stood out to me, but I blame this more on the writing of their characters than anything else.

Sorry daughters, your work is more heinous than most triumphant 

*Parts of the movie felt a little rushed to production or like they simply ran out of money in certain areas of the movie.  For example, when Bill and Ted travel to future San Dimas, it's essentially a gigantic empty space that I assume was supposed to filled in digitally with...something.  But instead we're treated to a desert of nothingness.  I love the tribute to George Carlin and the hologram of him, but why is this sitting in the equivalent of a gigantic empty lot in future San Dimas with nothing surrounding it?  It sure seemed to me like this was SUPPOSED to be filled with....something else, be it people, buildings, something....and it just felt lazy or like the production just ran out of money.

Bill and Ted and an Empty Void

*I truly hate to say this part, but Keanu Reeves appears to have forgotten how to play Ted in certain parts of the movie.  I really love all the different Teds we get throughout the movie, which I'll get to in a second, but Original Ted just seems...off.  It's almost as if Keanu has lost the goofiness of his youth and just can't get completely into the character anymore.

*For the third movie in a row, the franchise has no clue what to do with the princesses, who are once again played by a third set of actresses.  I get that they aren't the stars of the show but it also felt like something was missing here and I would have been a-ok if the movie had decided to feature them prominently in a subplot instead of the daughters.  The movie even set them up for it, traveling through time themselves to find a period where they are happy with their husbands.  It's especially frustrating because I really like Erinn Hayes particularly from her role in "Children's Hospital."

Maybe they'll be given something more to do in movie #4

*The ending feels a bit rushed and I think it's missing a scene or two after the concert that saves humanity just to wrap things up.  

Okay, now that all the "bad" is out of the way, let me get to the good stuff:

*Holy shit did Alex Winter crush his performance in this.  The dude hasn't really been in front of the camera in over 20 years but unlike Keanu, he fell right back into the loveable doofus that is Bill.  

*One of the only things I did talk about in the previous post was the scene stealing Anthony Carrigan as the evil turned good robot Dennis Caleb McCoy.  I also love this guy from his work on the HBO show "Barry," but he's just so goddamn funny in "Face the Music" and really steals every scene he's in.  He also made me anxious for "Barry" to return to TV, whenever that is.

Dennis CALEB Mccoy to you

*Someone else who excels in this one is William Sadler, reprising his role as Death.  Along with Dennis McCoy, Death has some of the funnier moments in the movie and it feels like William Sadler hasn't lost a step at all reprising his role, unlike our boy Keanu.

They Melvin'd me

*I feel like this one does a really good job taking parts of both of the first two movies and turning the third one into a bit of a weird hybrid of the two, even if the daughter subplot was lacking in execution.  Bill and Ted travel back to hell (along with a SWAT bus, which is hilarious) while their daughters travel through time.  It's a smart way to deliver this movie.

*I haven't mentioned yet, but the movie is actually really funny, particularly the opening wedding scene with Bill and Ted playing a variety of instruments and of course the fact that Deacon is now marrying Missy.  I also love the part where Bill and Ted are talking to each other about their remaining fans and are able to mention all of them by name.

*Of course loved the tributes to George Carlin, and yes I've teared up all four times watching this during the end of the movie when The Great Leader tells her daughter "your father would be so proud."  

Making us all proud

*Dave Grohl!

*I fucking loved the fan montage over the end credits of the movie, I filmed a video of myself for this but it looks like I didn't make the final cut, which is a shame because that would have just about been completely life fulfilling.  

*I love all the scenes of future Bill and Ted and this is where Keanu actually had a much better performance.  Especially like the prison sequence and all the makeup and costuming involved that made this look hilarious.

Nice tats 

*The final music sequence that saves the world is just a perfect way to end the trilogy.

At the end of the day, the good far outweighs the bad and the movie was completely worth the 30 year wait.  It's not better than Excellent Adventure but I would put it just slightly above Bogus Journey and I'm just ecstatic that this movie actually happened.  It's just a shame it came out during COVID because I was dying to see this on a big screen.

Box Office Information: NA.  I really hope this movie made a fortune from streaming platforms and it's just such a goddamn bummer this movie happened to be released in 2020, the worst year ever.

Rotten Tomatoes: 82% Critic/72% Audience.  I think this was the highest critically rated movie of the trilogy.

IMDB: 6.1

My Movie Rating: 9.  Yes, I'm a very biased reviewer when it comes to Bill and Ted but I really did love this movie and am not even mad that I've watched it four times in about two months.

Keanu Rating:  This one is tough for me because I really wanted to love him for reprising his role as Ted but he just misses the mark in a lot of spots in this.  Alex Winter gets a 10, but this isn't the Alex Winter project, so I'm giving Keanu a 6.5.

Up Next: Well, that really wraps up all the movies.  But have no fear, I've got a two if not three part recap coming up in the coming days.

The Keanu Reeves Project - John Wick: Parabellum

 JOHN WICK: PARABELLUM (2018) - John Wick

Well, we're here, the penultimate entry into the Keanu Reeves Project.  And yes that's correct, the penultimate episode because I will NOT be watching "Always be my Maybe" (brief cameo that while hilarious doesn't justify me watching the entire movie), "The Spongebob Movie" (brief cameo), "Toy Story 4" (voiceover only and I honestly have no idea how much his character is in the movie," or "Between Two Ferns" (brief cameo).  Wow, that's a lot of cameo work for Keanu in a single year but sorry, I will not be posting on these movies.  That means we're really coming to the end here with what might just end up being my top ranked movie in this entire project: "John Wick: Parabellum."

In my post about the first movie in this series I mentioned that I was hoping to use this project as a way to definitively rank this trilogy although I'm sure this will all be thrown off in a few years after the final (?) two (!) and I think I've finally settled on an order which is still really difficult because ALL of these movies are fucking awesome.  

But, having just watched "Parabellum" for the fourth time I think it's safe to say that this one stands above the others, making my final order: "Parabellum," "John Wick," and lastly "John Wick Chapter 2."  But let me reiterate, all three of these movies represent not only some of my favorite movies in this project but some of my favorite movies period, and also represent some of Keanu's best work.

Just like "Chapter 2," I saw "Parabellum" twice in the theater, first on opening night and then again the very next day.  We lost one of my closest friends to cancer the year prior to the release of this movie and he was the person I would have watched this with on opening night just as we did with "Chapter 2," so rather than go with anyone else I chose to go alone.  I was also incredibly high, so much so that I couldn't entirely follow the plot of this movie.  And we're not exactly talking about "Primer" here, we're talking about a John Wick movie, which while totally awesome, aren't exactly the most complicated of movies.

So I went and saw it again the next night as well (which I probably would have done anyway) just so I could actually comprehend the plot details.  Neither viewing was really better than the others but one mildly interesting thing happened both times: when John Wick travels to Morocco and meets Berrada, the keeper of the gold coins, audiences cheered because Berrada is played by Jerome Flynn, AKA Bronn from "Game of Thrones."  And you have to understand, this was before GOT completely shot itself in the face in the last season and so there was still a lot of love for the show and especially for Bronn apparently.  And yeah, I might have also cheered a little bit the first time too.

Yay, Bronn/BOO Game of Thrones!

Okay, unlike many previous posts I'm just not going to go beat by beat on this movie but I do want to write a little bit about why I think this movie is the best of the series.

First of all, "Parabellum's" opening 25ish minutes are fucking exhilarating.  We are treated to all of the following sequences at the film's start: John Wick fights the wonderfully delightful NBA player Boban Marjanovic in the New York Public Library, beating him to death with a book; John Wick has his first fight against a gang of assassins in the antique gun store and knife museum (or whatever it is); and John Wick annihilates a second gang of assassins in a horse stable with the brutal horse bucking kills; and to top it all off Keanu escapes on horseback, killing another handful of would-be killers on motorcycles as he rides through the city.

Yee-Hah!

And that's just the first 20 minutes.  I COULD write 1,000 words on each of these scenes but I won't.  I do however just want to touch on the knife museum as this is my favorite action sequence in the movie as I think it embodies everything that makes these movies, and Keanu specifically, spectacular.  This single scene lets Keanu (and the stunt performers alongside him) show off all of the judo and close combat fighting he trained extensively for specifically for these movies.  But the best part of this entire scene is when John Wick and one of his assailants, after fighting hand-to-hand for a few seconds, simultaneously realize that they are literally surrounded by edged weapons and bust open display cases to arm themselves.  It's somehow both really funny and intense and this entire fight sequence is downright awesome.

Best scene of any John Wick movie?

"Parabellum" also continues to further the backstory of both John Wick as well as the universe in which he lives, something that has been masterfully done throughout all three movies.  In the previous movie, John Wick owed a marker and in this one he calls his own in after he travels to Morocco to visit Halle Berry.  We learn both more about where he came from when he visits Angelica Huston's ballet company/assassin training facility and we even get a bit more understanding about the high table and the hierarchy in which it works.  

Although, there is one part of this movie that I still find completely stupid.  John Wick travels to Morocco specifically to meet with Berrata in order to gain access to the Elder, the one dude who sits above the High Table.  When they meet, Berrata gives Keanu this story about how to track down the Elder - you need to walk through the desert and walk and walk and walk.  And when you feel like you can't walk any further, just keep on walking and the Elder will find you.

Beautiful AND stupid

The first time I watched this movie I thought Berrata was just being metaphorical.  But not, that's actually exactly what John Wick had to do.  And while the scenes of Keanu walking through gigantic sand dunes certainly LOOK COOL, this whole sequence is just really fucking dumb.

But speaking of looking cool, this movie is beautiful.  This is something that I think is a trend throughout the movies but some of the shots of "Parabellum" are just amazing to look at.  Whether it's the glow of the Continental during the final battle there, the shots of the desert in Morocco or the amazing design of the interior of the Continental as Keanu battles Zero and his students.

Impossible for me to find a singular photo to show the beauty of this movie, so let's just go with this one

Oh, speaking of Zero, this movie introduces us to a few new characters that really stand out with really excellent performances.  I think Mark Dacascos kills his role as Zero, the High Table's personal assassin.  He's both menacing and funny and essentially plays a stand-in for the audience in his interactions with John Wick.  Asia Kate Dillon is also really great as the Adjudicator and unlike Zero, is always very stoic and serious.  And I'd be remiss to not mention the introduction of the always hilarious Jason Mantzoukas as Tick Tock Man, who had expressed interest in appearing in a Wick movie in the "Johnny Mnemonic" episode of everyone's favorite podcast, "How Did This Get Made."

Tick tock, Mr. Wick

We've also got a few returning folks as well, which gets harder and harder as these movies continue since, you know, lots of people die.  Lawrence Fishburne is back as the Bowery King and while he annoyed me with his....overacting in the previous movie is much better in this, as well as Ian McShane as Winston.  And I fucking love that Lance Reddick, as Charon the hotel concierge is finally given a much more active role in this, holding his own in the Battle of the Continental.

And one more thing to mention that I don't think I've talked about in ANY POST to this point - the sound mixing in "Parabellum" is amazing.  Every punch, gunshot, kick or anything else just sounds great.  It's part of why I loved seeing this in the theater that I can't replicate at home.  When John Wick and Charon arm themselves with giant shotguns towards the end of the movie, the blasts that emit from them are both booming and terrifying and the sound in this really adds so much to the already intense visuals throughout.

BOOM goes the dynamite

Fuck I love this movie.

Okay, some side notes: 

*Wow, I didn't even mention the two dudes from "The Raid" who Keanu fights in the second to last fight sequence.  I've only seen "The Raid" once and am yet to see the sequel, but fuck those guys are amazing.  This is also a spectacular fight sequence with multiple beats and even a little comedy thrown in.  As far as I can remember, they're also the only two people that John Wick willingly spares in the trilogy, ostensibly because of how much John Wick respects their skill.  I really hope we see them again in John Wick 4, maybe even on his side this time.  

Note to self: rewatch "The Raid"

*By my count, this movie features the 4th dead dog in this project.  

*Speaking of dead dogs, the fight sequence with them and Halle Berry is also really fun.  I don't know how they trained the dogs to do some of this shit but wow is it impressive.

*I only have four bones to pick with this movie.  I already mentioned the first one as walking through the Sahara to find the Elder is just stupid.  But here are the only other two: First, why is the security at the Continental so completely outgunned by the High Table's trucks of trained killers with heavy weapons?  They roll out of a security room armed with little more than handguns and suits, going up against dudes in full body armor and automatic weapons, when we have unquestionable knowledge of a gigantic armory inside the Continental?  I suppose you could argue that since no business is allowed to be conducted on Continental grounds under normal circumstances, these guys would have little use to be heavily armed, but this is a bit of a different situation and again, they HAVE ACCESS TO MUCH MORE POWERFUL WEAPONS.  It makes no sense.  

Third - near the start of the movie John Wick jumps into a cab and ends up giving the driver a coin with the instruction to take his dog back to the Continental.  Thousands of cabs in NYC and John Wick happens to find one with a driver who is part of the system?  Is anyone in New York NOT part of the assassin underground?  

Thank God I got in the right cab

And finally, there's no way John Wick survives that fall at the end of the movie.

*I haven't even mentioned the motorcycle chase/fight over the bridge!  I found a Youtube clip of all the work it took to make that scene come to life and it's simply amazing what they were able to do from a blend of actual footage mixed with visual effects.  It's awesome what the filmmakers were able to accomplish with a much larger budget than the previous two movies.

VROOM!

*Going into this movie I had assumed they'd wrap this one up with a nice little bow and that'd be the end of it, so I was really surprised when "Parabellum" once again directly sets up for another movie, which unfortunately has been delayed by a full year due to COVID.  Lame.

Box Office Information: $171 Million Domestic/$154 Million international for a total of $325 Million worldwide.  It also made another $53 million in the home market (VOD, etc) on a budget of $40 Million.  It's also currently the 31st highest grossing R rated movie of all time.  For the record, the trilogy has made nearly $600 Million in worldwide box office, which is something like less than HALF of the "Matrix" trilogy despite being infinitely better.  I guess it's these R ratings.

Rotten Tomatoes: 90% Critic/86% Audience.  How does this not have 100?  Who DIDN'T like this?  I can't even bother to parse through the reviews to find the handful of idiots in here.

IMDB: 7.4.  IMDB ratings are totally fucking useless.

My Movie Rating: Am I gonna do it?  Fuck it, yes.  11/10.  That's right, this movie takes it up to 11.

Keanu Rating: 10/10.  Perfect.

Up Next: Wow, it's my last movie which I already previously reviewed but am circling back to, "Bill and Ted Face the Music."  But have no fear blog readers, I am already planning an excessively long recap post (or posts) full of total rankings and awards!

The Keanu Reeves Project - Replicas

REPLICAS (2018) - Bill Foster

Ever since I started this project on day one I have been specifically looking forward to one movie that I hadn't seen before: "Replicas."

Now you might say, "What the fuck are you talking about?  That movie is supposed to be terrible!"

And yes, in fact here are just a few pull-quotes from Rotten Tomatoes:

*"Replicas" is not without its laughs, even if they're at the expense of the film. For a bad movie, you could do a lot worse. Boot the mapping service, baby.

*If you woke up in a glitching simulation, this janky garbage would be projected on every screen, possibly under the title Human Movie.

And maybe my favorite, simple and concise:

*This is really terrible.

Long time readers of this project (both of you) are aware of my love of bad movies, it's part of why when I'm done with this whole thing in a few days Johnny Mnemonic is going to be higher up on the final rankings than the actual score I gave it, because while terrible, it's utterly hilarious.

So I was excited to finally get around to this, thinking I was going to be treated to a very fun bad movie.  So you can count me as just a tiny bit disappointed that this movie didn't live up to my hilariously bad movie expectations.  In fact, for the first 30ish minutes I was actually kind of enjoying this despite the stupidity and wanting to see where it was actually going.  Sure, a lot of it was completely preposterous and silly but it wasn't out and out terrible.

But the final act...yeesh.  It wasn't so much comical as it was just...really fucking bad.  Badly written, badly performed, bad CGI, bad everything.  What sucks is that somewhere in here there WAS a decent, mildly entertaining movie a la something from the mind of Phillip K. Dick.  But instead we were given a Frankenstein mash-up that's 25% "The Terminator," 10% "Minority Report," "5% Jurassic Park", 30% "I, Robot," "5% Robocop" and 25% "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" with a splash of "Sophie's Choice" but 100% garbage.

You know by now: full and total spoilers ahead and this might get long in order to cover exactly how dumb "Replicas" is.

The movie opens in Puerto Rico where Keanu plays William Foster, some sort of research scientist working in a lab and being told that a donor is on the way and to get ready.  We also meet one of his colleagues, Ed, played by Silicon Valley's Thomas Middleditch who I assume was typecast in this movie as Keanu's nerdy sidekick.  A very recently dead body is delivered to the lab and Keanu uses some sort of scify headset that jabs a needle through the dead man's eye and extracts all of the neurological data from his brain.

I don't know how they got Will Smith to agree to play the role of "cadaver"

I should also mention that there's a LOT of futuristic science jargon that you better get used to if you're going to keep watching the movie.  Keanu then takes the extracted brain data and using the exact same computer from "Minority Report," transfers the data into a robot, who wakes up looking at Keanu through "Robocop" vision and completely freaks out before the researchers can unplug it.

Can you say "Keanu?"  Ke-Ah-Nu?

See, Keanu and crew are working at this company with the stated goal of "reviving" dead soldiers (among other groups) by extracting the memories in their brains and putting them inside robots, essentially granting immortality although that word is never actually used.  By the way, there are literally zero conversations about the legality, morality or ethical implications of any of this.

The problem however, is that Keanu has failed to successfully make this work and his boss, a guy just named "Jones" lets Keanu and Ed know that they're running out of time and the board won't keep funding a project that is costing a ton of money and not getting anywhere.  

Keanu heads home where his wife Mona, played by Alice Eve, is packing up their SUV for a trip.  Now, I don't recognize Alice Eve from anything but for a movie that prominently features robots, she easily gives the most robotic performance of anyone in this movie.  I got a very Chris Isaac from "Little Buddha" vibe from her and if you've read that post from several months ago you know that is not a compliment.  When describing Alice Eve, I think the word I'm looking for is wooden.  Anyway, Mona is packing up the kids for something (I should note that it is a bright, beautiful day in Puerto Rico). So Ed shows up and we learn the family is going on a little trip, apparently to Ed's boat.

I know it's hard to tell from a photo but that "woman" is actually a cyborg

Cut to the next scene and it's pouring rain and dark and Keanu's got the whole family in the car on the way to the boat.  All of a sudden a tree branch falls through the windshield, impaling Mona.  Keanu freaks out and swerves off the road and into a pond where we learn a tiny bit later that the entire family is dead - Mona, his son Matt and his daughters Zoe and Sophie.  

Keanu, rather than calling the cops, instead makes a phone call to Ed, who shows up and sees the scene and is basically like, "we should call the cops."  At least for the first act of this movie, Ed is the only voice of reason but forget reason because he's just about always ignored.

Keanu and Ed head back to their lab where we learn that aside from extracting neurological data, Ed has enough free time for a side project: cloning.  Ed warns Keanu that he's never actually cloned humans (Ed thankfully lets us all know that it's illegal) and even a lot of the animals he's cloned have come out all fucked up.  Not to mention that even IF he can successfully clone Keanu's family, their brains will come out as infants and Keanu hasn't exactly been successful at the whole 'brain transfer process to robots quite yet.

But morality, ethics, law, and common sense be damned, Keanu loves his family and he'll do anything to bring them back.  Keanu goes home to wait for Ed, who shows up in a goddamn truck FULL of equipment that he took/stole from the lab.  How he was able to do all of this by himself without anyone noticing?  Fuck you, stop asking questions!

But uh oh, just one small problem once again, Ed only had three cloning pods at the lab and Keanu's got four dead family members.  It's a bit like a Pokemon situation but instead it's a dead family: can't clone 'em all!  Keanu puts all of his family's names in a hat because he has to make a Sophie's choice - AMAZINGLY FUNNY since once of his daughters is ACTUALLY NAMED SOPHIE.  Come on "Replicas," you HAVE GOT TO TRY HARDER.

Whoops, wrong movie

Zoe pulls the short straw and won't be cloned today.  Sorry Zoe, NO REPLICA FOR YOU.

Ed sets up the cloning pods in Keanu's basement and warns him that he has to keep constant watch on the pods and consistently check "the levels." Ah yes, the important levels!  Plus, if the pods ever lose power (a potential problem in Puerto Rico) the whole thing is fucked.  Ed also warns that human clones are going to take exactly 17 days to make (how he knows this without ever having done it before is yet another open question) but even more problematic, what about Zoe?  If Keanu can successfully move brain memories into human clones, his whole family is going to be like "Hey, didn't we have another member in this family?"

Just set to 450 and wait 17 days

But hey once again, FUCK YOU viewer because Keanu has got a super Minority Report computer that allows him to scan and search everyone's brains for memories of Zoe and completely erase her from existence!  Just a simple control+f, select all, and delete and it's done!

Control+F

We have to talk about Zoe

Back at work Ed gets some bad news from Jones - unless they make the next brain transplant work, they're all getting shut down.  Ed relays this news to Keanu and says this would be bad because if they get shut down they're going to come looking for the millions of dollars of lab equipment currently making clones in Keanu's basement.  Why it wouldn't be noticed missing otherwise - still a mystery but hopefully you've learned by now to stop asking questions.

Keanu's missing presence has also been noticed at work so he goes back in where he's immediately swamped by his staff for one thing or another but when he gets home from work he's greeted by Matt's teacher because dumbass Keanu forgot that his entire family is dead and nobody bothered to give a reason to the school for why nobody is showing up and also forgot to say anything to the clinic where his doctor wife works.  WHOOPS!  

Ed, who was at the house watching on the clones when the teacher arrived, explains to Keanu that he got rid of the teacher by saying Matt's got chicken pox and temporarily living with his grandparents ("BUT THEY'RE DEAD" says Keanu) while he recovers.  Ed, ever the voice of reason is like "Uh, you didn't think anyone would notice your whole family is missing?"  Not to mention that one of his cars is literally upside down in a pond outside of town (don't worry, this is never mentioned again either).

So Keanu gets to work: he grabs all of his kids' and Mona's laptops and phones and furiously responds to the hundreds of missed calls and texts they've received with various explanations, the only which I really caught was telling everyone the kids are being homeschooled now.  Not sure how he explained the disappearance of his wife from her medical practice BUT FUCK YOU, IT DOESN'T MATTER.

Oh hell no

Ed shows up to the house and the clones are just about cooked to a crispy well done status, but the problem is that Keanu still doesn't have the whole brain transference thing figured out.  Ed is like, well buddy, you have to take the clones out now because the longer they're in the tank the more they're going to age and it's sure going to be hard to explain when your 12 year old son is now 45 and your wife is elderly.  But Keanu has yet another plan - he pulls them all out of the tanks and sedates them all, buying himself three more days to figure this shit out.

If all of this sounds ridiculous to this point it's because it totally is.

Gooey!

So three days whoosh by and Keanu hasn't figured brain transference out and he's just about to kill the clones (starting with his wife) when he gets a phone call from Jones and as he does he notices something for the first time: when he puts his hand on his wife's arm, all of a sudden there's brain activity that wasn't there before.  This of course is fucking stupid and makes no sense but FUCK YOU.  Somehow, this solves Keanu's dilemma and he figures that all of these brains have been rejected by machine brains because the brain is searching for its body and doesn't know what the fuck is going on.  It's all a bunch of mumbo jumbo nonsense but we have to advance this plot.

So Keanu brings up his Minority Report computer and makes some changes to his algorithm to trick the implant and gets ready to put the replicated memories into his family.  Is it going to work?  Of course it does, it's a VERY STUPID MOVIE!

Changing the algorithm on the Minority Report computer

Ed is like holy shit we did it but dammit we can't actually tell anyone what we actually did here.  Mona wakes up and recognizes Keanu but he has to knock her back out because the house isn't quite ready for replica family just yet.  There's photos of Zoe all over the house, there's a ton of lab equipment in the basement, and there are dirty dishes everywhere!

So Keanu cleans up - throws away all the memories of Zoe, straightens up the house, and disassembles the bunk beds in his daughter's room because he had to Sophie's choice Zoe so bunkbeds would also be confusing.  Did he erase the memories of the bunk beds too?  FUCK YOU, WHO CARES.

Goodbye Zoe, it's been nice, hope you find your paradise

He goes to bed next to Mona but he wakes up the next morning and she's gone!  Oh boy, it's the moment of truth: Keanu walks to the kitchen and his whole family is there getting ready for the day!  Everyone is like "hey dad!" and acting like everything is normal and hooray, Keanu did it!  Thankfully it's a Saturday so no school or work for anyone except Keanu because there's still the small explanation of figuring out how to tell his kids they don't attend school anymore and that they can't talk to ANYONE ever again because their family of five is now a family of four and yeah, that's just a teeny tiny bit suspicious.

Keanu goes to work because they have another donor coming in and they better get this one right or else they are both screwed.  I mean they're screwed anyway from everything else I've mentioned to this point but whatever!  Keanu heads to the men's room and comes up with a plan: he takes an imprint of his OWN brain to implant into their robot.  This way, he can use his brain-tricking algorithm to make it work this time.  Or something.  He explains the plan to Ed and Ed is like IT'S GENIUS (is it?)!  He makes an excuse to not do the brain transference on this particular donor and goes home where things are...not going great.

Why hello REPLICA family

Mona explains that she doesn't exactly feel right and everyone's cell phones are missing.  She also vaguely remembers they were supposed to go on a boat trip but doesn't remember it and she also doesn't remember what she had for dinner last night (hint: it was cloning goo).  

That night, Sophie has a nightmare and wakes up screaming that her mom is dead because it's the last thing she saw before the car crash and she died.  Keanu runs in and realizes that yes, he's fucked up yet again: he erased Zoe but he didn't erase the car crash or everyone in the family watching mom fucking die.  This would almost be an interesting beat in the movie if it were played correctly, but it isn't and so it just comes across as genius researcher Keanu continuing to be an absolute dumbass and not thinking more than one step ahead.  

So Keanu carries Sophie to the basement, pulls open his Minority Report computer and starts searching Sophie's brain for memories of the crash, which he proceeds to erase.  Just one problem though, as he wraps up his after school project, Mona walks in and is like "uh, what the fuck are you doing to our daughter?"

Maybe when he's done with her he can erase this movie from my brain as well

Stuck without being able to explain himself to clone wife, Keanu tells her the truth - there was a crash and everyone died but him and now they are all REPLICAS.  Ugh.

The next day at dinner (still no school because it's Sunday?), Sophie asks a simple question: who is Zoe?  Apparently the word Zoe was written in crayon somewhere in the room and Keanu didn't catch that one.  Whoops again Keanu.  Keanu and Mona head to the other room and Mona is like, what the fuck is going on, I remember there being photos around the house and just as Keanu tries to make yet another bad excuse, the doorbell rings and it's Jones.

Jones and Keanu take a walk to the backyard where Jones confronts Keanu by basically saying, "Hey dipshit, I'm well aware that your whole family are clones with memories that you gave them because you have figured this out." Jones also comes a bit clean at this point: Keanu's research isn't exactly an innocent project to extend the lives of dead soldiers.  Nope, they're basically working for the military because can you imagine being able to put the brain of the world's best pilot into a thousand drones?  Not to mention any other number of uses for this breakthrough technology.  But no, Keanu never thought of that because as I've already established, despite being an absolute genius HE'S ALSO SOMEHOW A TOTAL FUCKING MORON.  

Mr. Jones and me

Jones becomes a really, really over-the-top comically bad villain at this point and tells Keanu that this whole side project of his isn't really going to fly and that the clones need to die, but Keanu also needs to hand over the algorithm that makes this whole thing work.  Keanu is like "sure thing, buddy" and heads to the basement to get the algorithm while a bunch of armed goons wait outside for Jones' signal to bust in and kill everyone.  But Keanu returns upstairs and stabs Jones in the arm with a sedative and then beats him over the head before putting the disk with the algorithm in the microwave to destroy it.

At this point, Mona starts freaking out and Keanu is like "yeah we have to get out of here because all of these dudes are going to kill you" and so the family hops into their car and Keanu speeds off while the goons give chase.  Jones calls the lead goon and says "don't shoot him in the head," because he is going to need to replicate Keanu's brain in order to get that damn algorithm back.  This is all very stupid.

So now we are treated to an asinine car chase sequence in which we learn that the cloned bodies have trackers built into them (how?  We get an explanation that makes zero sense but who cares anyway, FUCK YOU), but they are able to remove them by zapping them out with a defibrillator (okay, sure) at Mona's clinic.  After getting around the trackers, they make a run for it by heading to Ed's boat but the keys aren't where they're supposed to be and Keanu's entire family is captured and taken back to the lab.

CLEAR!

Keanu heads to the lab to save his family and Jones is already waiting for him along with Ed who was sort of forced to give up Keanu's destination for fear of being murdered by Jones.  Ed apologizes for things getting out of hand and Keanu proceeds to say possibly the stupidest thing in this entirely stupid movie by stating the obvious to Jones: "You can't kill me because I destroyed the algorithm that you need and the only place it exists is in my head." Uh, have you been watching this movie Keanu?  Because that's the point entirely.  Jones is like, "Yeah, I sort of need you but I don't need him," and he shoots Ed in the head, dead.  Seemed a bit pointless to me but FUCK YOU who cares.

Genius, shoot the guy who knows how to make human clones in the head

Keanu is like "okay, I'll give you the algorithm" and he opens up Minority Report computer to rebuild it and then implants it in the robot that's been sitting around the lab, non-functional this entire time.  The robot wakes up but along with implanting it with his own brain that he had copied earlier in the movie, he's also given it a bit of a Terminator modification, so the (very poorly CGI rendered) robot goes apeshit and attacks all of Jones goons.  Keanu follows the robot back into the room where it is HILARIOUSLY choking Jones out on the floor and Jones tells Keanu that if he gets killed "they'll just send someone else anyway."

A better screenshot of the Minority Report computer

Fucking hilarious

So Keanu devises yet one more plan and is like "not if we work together."  Robot Keanu tells Jones to "give us what we want and we'll make you a very rich man."  So Keanu and his family leave the lab while Robot Keanu takes an imprint of Jones' brain before presumably killing and replicating him so nobody comes looking for him, all the while shutting down the operation. In fact, who the fuck was able to make this clone anyway?  The only person who could do it is Ed and Ed's dead, shot in the head so they can't get his memory anyway.   It makes NO FUCKING SENSE BUT FUCK YOU WHO CARES.  

We get a title card of "17 days later" and we see Keanu on the beach with his entire family, INCLUDING ZOE (HOW?).  We then cut to the United Arab Emirates where an old man in a wheelchair enters a room where he is greeted by a replicated version of Jones and the robot version of Keanu, with the implication that they are going to clone the old guy with his own brain, basically granting immortality.  The movie ends with Robot Keanu simply stating, "Boot the mapping sequence."

Ugh

THIS MOVIE IS FUCKING BAD.  What really sucks is that it doesn't get comically bad until the last 20ish minutes and it's not worth it at that point.

Okay, a few side notes:

*I really don't understand what this family vacation was supposed to be on Ed's boat.  They were traveling there in a storm, at night, and by the time we actually see what Ed's boat actually is, it certainly doesn't feel like an overnight vacation destination.  It's not a yacht or some big fancy boat, it's this small thing you would find sitting in someone's driveway.  Like, that would have been the worst vacation ever for five people.

*Keanu, who is very wealthy and lives in Puerto Rico, a place prone to hurricanes and tropical storms, doesn't own a generator.  This is brought up when Ed lets him know that the cloning pods can NEVER LOSE POWER.  So what does Keanu do?  Well apparently he walks around his neighborhood and steals the batteries out of all the cars on the street, which eventually leads to the cops showing up at his door to ask if his battery has been stolen as well (which he says no, interesting as he's the only person on the block with an unstolen car battery).  This is a plot thread that also goes nowhere because this movie is fucking dumb and no law enforcement ever follows up on this.  Why even bring up the whole battery thing at all then?  Oh right, this movie was written by a monkey.

An actual picture of the writer of this movie

*On the second day after waking the clones, the whole family goes Christmas tree shopping where Matt picks out a fake tree he really likes before being chided by his mother for liking a FAKE TREE.  Do you get it?  Do you get it?  The tree is fake, just like the family and fuck this movie is fucking dumb.

*Is Jones a shoutout to the cybernetic dolphin Jones from "Johnny Mnenomic?"  I'm just going to go with yes.

*I lost track of the number of plot holes in this movie.  Beyond all the ones I've mentioned already there have to be a half dozen more.  At least Ed does his best in the first act to try to clean some of them up but even he gives up on this at about the 30 minute mark.

Box Office Information: $4 Million domestic/$5 Million international for a worldwide total of $9 Million on a $30 Million budget.  "Replicas" is considered one of the biggest bombs of Keanu's career.

Rotten Tomatoes: 11% Critic/33% Audience.  About right.

IMDB: 5.5

My Movie Rating: 3/10.  When I compile this list this movie is going to end up a higher rank than a few of the movies I've put in the 3.5 - 4 range I'm thinking because yes, it's fucking terrible, full of plot holes and utterly asinine but I was at least somewhat entertained throughout it.  But make no mistake, this movie blows.

Keanu Rating: 4/10.  Miscast yet again and given horrible material to work with.  That said, some of Keanu's best work is when he's playing a grieving character and he does get a bit of a chance to exercise that muscle in this one.

Up Next: YES, it's "John Wick: Parabellum" and the penultimate entry for the Keanu Reeves Project.

 

The Keanu Reeves Project - Destination Wedding

DESTINATION WEDDING (2018) - Frank

Here we go, yet another recent Keanu movie that I had not heard of and knew nothing about going in, but from the cover art and the title of the movie it sure sounded like a romantic comedy to me and that's exactly what I got....sort of.  I actually had moderately high hopes for this one since it featured Keanu co-starring along with one of his long time friends and frequent performer in this project, Winona Ryder.  Unlike the last movie I watched, I was pretty sure these two have great on-screen chemistry, due to the fact that they've been friends since the 80's so at worst I would be treated to 90 minutes of the two of them sharing a screen together.

What I got was about 90 minutes of a VERY dialogue heavy and extremely overwritten movie that did have a handful of funny moments, but the funny moments didn't outweigh how tedious this thing started feeling after about 40 minutes.

The movie itself felt more like a David Mamet play turned film and I do not mean that as a compliment.  Neither Keanu nor Winona feel like actual real human beings, each one deeply flawed (that's not the unbelievable part): narcissistic, dour, pessimistic, depressed.  Hey, sounds a little like me.

The biggest problem is that neither one of them talks like an actual real human being.  I'm unfamiliar with the writer/director Victor Levin, although he's done a lot of work in film and TV (most of which I haven't seen), so it's not like this was done by some unknown hack. Let me just give you a quick example: 

At the start of the movie, two strangers meet each other at the airport (this is before they know they are both attending the same DESTINATION WEDDING), and after a very brief exchange of pleasantries they quickly realize they hate each other.  Keanu, subtly attempting to board the plane in front of Winona, takes a step in front of her, which she calls out.  He then says, "And now you're casting me as the author of a Byzantine conspiracy theory of a Machiavellian landgrab designed to usurp your position on an aircraft that has eight seats."

THIS. IS. NOT. HOW. HUMAN. BEINGS. SPEAK.

Yes, we learn that both Keanu and Winona are educated with seemingly important professions (Keanu the "head of marketing" at JD Power) and Winona an attorney but I do not care because people do not talk this way.

Anyway, I know some of my recent posts have been bordering on absurd lengths so I'm going to keep this one brief, which should be easy since this is not a complicated story:

As mentioned, the movie opens with Frank (Keanu) and Lindsay (Winona) meeting at the airport on the way to a DESTINATION WEDDING in San Luis Obispo, California.  They immediately hate each other and begin to bicker as soon as board their very small flight.  The bickering continues, and continues, and continues throughout the first half of the movie.

You sure have a lot of baggage

They reach their destination and check into their hotel, where they have adjoining rooms (of course).  We learn that the groom is Keanu's half-brother and Winona is the groom's ex-fiance (from six years ago) and she is DEFINITELY NOT over the relationship.  They attend the rehearsal dinner and learn more about each other through more arguing and bickering and they're basically both the worst people alive.  The dialogue is fast and heavy and again, not how people, let alone strangers, talk to one another.

I should mention at this point that not another single character in this movie has a speaking role.  This is part of why I feel like this movie feels like a theatrical play than anything else.

Winona is like, do you think anyone will notice if I leave and he says no and she rolls out, giving him the finger on the way.  The next day we're treated to a somewhat amusing title card (there are a few of these over the course of the movie):

Accurate

Winona and Keanu share a foot massage together, him mentioning that this is the last thing he'd want to be doing but he's also super cheap and unwilling to turn down anything he receives for free.  She also continues to talk about how she's not over the groom even though he's a total asshole and completely sucks.  More bickering ensues.

Then they head to a winery and finally agree on something: destination weddings are pretentious and stupid and it's fucked up to force your friends and family to spend a shitload of money and use their entire weekend just for you.  Hey, something I agree with!

Drinking

Next up it's the actual wedding!  They are seated at a table together and agree that neither of them wants to dance, so instead they take a walk and run into a goddamn mountain lion.  This scene is actually relatively funny as they argue about what kind of wild cat is about to kill them (is it a panther?  a cougar?) before Keanu ends it by saying "what the fuck difference does it make, it's a goddamn predator cat."  

Winona gets upset and says something like "I can't believe you're the last person I'm going to talk to before I die," and Keanu gets off another funny line by replying "Well, there might be EMT's."  Keanu actually scares the cat off by hissing at it, then they run away and fall down a hill before they both decide that after all this bickering and near death experience they might as well bang one out.

More amusing if they had been mauled

So they have sex on the hill in a very long sequence that, as you might have guessed by now, is CHOCK FULL of the two of them talking/bickering with each other.  

They leave the wedding and head back to the hotel and hang out in Keanu's room, finally opening up to each other a bit about what they find attractive about the other and this entire sequence is ridiculous just in the way they talk to one another.  Winona alludes to their relationship continuing beyond the DESTINATION WEDDING and Keanu basically tells her that she's delusional and that the two of them are too fucked up as individuals to ever be able to make it together.  They spend the evening chatting in bed, eventually falling asleep together.

Sexy pajamas - Keanu says even Superman couldn't see through them

They head to the farewell brunch and leave without saying goodbye to anyone (because this would require someone else in this movie to speak for the first time) and then get on the plane to head home.  Keanu puts her in a taxi (where he learns her full address) and he goes back to his home where he yells at the people on his television (a running joke).  Winona also heads home and all of a sudden there's a knock on the door and duh, it's Keanu, who shrugs and the movie ends.

Okay, some side notes:

*One thing I DID like about their sex on the hill sequence is that before they have sex they actually do have a conversation about protection, something that NEVER EVER EVER EVER happens in movies.  Everyone in movies always just fuck as if there aren't a plethora of problems that come with having sex with strangers.  Of course, neither of them were expecting this to happen at this DESTINATION WEDDING so they throw caution to the wind and do it anyway.  Winona is like "I think my womb is hostile" is also a bit of a funny line.

Essentially five minutes of this, but with bickering

*There ARE funny moments and lines in this movie!  The problem is that they are all overshadowed by the constant bickering, the fact that these two people talk like people in a movie, and that they are both wholly unlikable characters.

*I do wonder if Keanu and Winona ever dated in real life, unlike the previous movie the two of them DO have really good on-screen chemistry even if they're also both insufferable in this movie.

*Winona looks GREAT in this and Keanu Reeves looks like a goddamn boss in a suit.

Box Office Information: $1.6M on an unknown budget, another super limited release

Rotten Tomatoes: 51% Critic/58% Audience.  Looks about right.

IMDB: 6.0

My Movie Rating: 4.5/10.  As I've said, the movie does have its funny moments but it's just so goddamn talky and full of nonsensical dialogue.  I didn't hate it but it also felt much longer than the 90 minute run time.  

Keanu Rating: 7/10.  He plays a pretty unlikable person and he speaks in rapid fire bullshit throughout.  

Up Next: A movie I've been excited about since I started this project because of how bad it supposedly is, it's "Replicas"!

The Keanu Reeves Project - Siberia

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.