h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"It really is impossible to underestimate Keanu Reeves."

- seen in a review praising Keanu Reeves, yesterday.

Love it. You can't speak lowly enough of such an actor.

Reminds me of Dorothy Parker on Katherine Hepburn: She ran the gamut of emotions from A to B.

But he played Siddhartha... He showed such range... of looking like he'd reached nirvana... you know... staring blankly ahead as if one was removed from oneself and the world... and emotions and whatnot?


What is satori if not "Whoah"?

He takes Christopher Reeves's advice on how to play Superman (let the costume do the acting) and applies it universally.

Do you think it was an intentional slight, or did they think they were being nice to him?

He was fantastic in the first Matrix film, he really got wandering around looking permanently confused off pat. Went a bit down hill in the other two matrix films though because he was still doing the bemused thing when he was supposed to be the one with all the answers...

It was in the Sky Magazine. I think they were being nice.

A lot of people get this wrong. They say you can't under- or over- do something when they mean you mustn't under- etc.

Has nobody seen the Bill & Ted movies?

Excellent!

Totally excellent.

I will say that from what I've seen of him, Keanu Reeves is a bit of a one-dimensional actor. Great in Bill and Ted and the first Matrix film (which, now I think about it, are actually very different from each other ) but has anyone seen him in Kenneth Branagh's film of Much Ado About Nothing? Miscast is not the word.

Not to mention the ill-conceived 'Bram Stoker's Dracula'. Both those films show great evidence of fun on the set, none for the audience.

Bram Stoker's Dracula -- the name is a piece of blatant publicity which states the opposite of what is delivered. It doesn't do what it says on the tin. Unfaithful to the original in so many ways.

On a scale from 1 to 10 - I'd give it a 2

...the 2 points are for Dracula's hair.

It's not that I don't understand where people are getting their perception of Reeves, but I think that he and some other specific actors get a bum rap for things like delivering wooden, robot-like, unemotional or bland performances. Most acting is the result of collaboration. You often have an original book that sets the tone, a scriptwriter who changes the book, a director that interprets the screenplay, and executives that okay each days work. Then you have the stage hands, other actors, and just a ton of impacts ending with the editor!

Keanu has played a mugger, hero, walking hard-drive, scientist, stoner, school kid, angel, alien, football player, policeman - just to name the ones that come to mind - and I've seen plenty of nuanced and radically different performances from him; and they were nearly always entertaining if not believable.

I'm glad that he didn't get stuck in the comicky roles of 'The Night Before' and 'Bill & Teds', but I enjoyed the heck out of them for what they were. I liked his 'cop' performances in 'Point Break' and 'Speed'. He has actually shown some decent emotional content at times, in movies like 'The Devil's Advocate' and 'A Walk in the Clouds'.

Another American actor that gets painted with the same 'wooden actor' brush is Nicolas Cage, but that's because most people haven't seen him in 'Valley Girl', 'Birdy', or 'Vampire's Kiss'.

Even Arnold Schwarzenegger has had good moments in 'The Villian', 'The Running Man', 'Kindergarten Cop', and 'Jingle All The Way'.

Maybe I'm just way too tolerant, but I don't consider their talents merely mediocre, even if some of the productions are.

It's true that the thing I hold most against Nicholas Cage is that he was chosen to play Captain Corelli, for which role he was totally unsuited, instead of Roberto Benigni, who won an Oscar the previous year, was perfect for the role, and was unaccountably passed over, which presumably was not Nicholas Cage's doing.

Gary Oldman was wonderful as Dracula. The rest of the cast was dreadful, with Anthony Hopkins phoning it in long-distance, Tom Waits inexcusbly miscast and misdirected, and the rest hiding their talents behind a wall of ennui. The low-tech effects were wonderful, but the main gripe is that the character of Dracula, as cold-blooded as a lizard in the book, became by far the most sympathetic person in the film. Bram Stoker's Dracula, not.

Never even saw that one. There as nobody in it that I'd have felt compelled to go see. Even Irene Papas hadn't been in anything I wanted to see since 'Into the Night'.

Did no one see Little Buddha?