I’ve noticed a number of times that he’s suckered me: I’ll be watching him as he does his usual schtick — as folks in this thread have correctly noted — and he’ll suddenly display some forceful authenticity to impressive effect. And when I’ll think back on it later, I’ll realize that it wasn’t an especially powerhouse line delivery; it just hit twice as hard because of the, uh, context of calmness.
We LOVED him in Parenthood. He was also great in I Love You To Death.
I don’t know if he has much range but he can be effective the right roles.
I wanted to bring up a spare point that came to mind earlier - I did state that Keanu’s ability to emote didn’t work well for me, but I wanted to add a caveat. He doesn’t (again, IMHO) have much of a range of convincing facial emotes, but he’s much better at showing emotion via physicality - such as short, jerky movements and body tension to show anxiety, stress, or other powerful emotion he does quite well (equally IMH), but it doesn’t come across in his facial expression.
Just a little qualification of my earlier comments on further thought.
Reminds me of a MadTV sketch where Reeves had started his own acting school and was explaining how to perform Shakespeare: rush through every line until you get to a word or two you understand, then hit those words as hard as possible. “Ohwhatarogueandapeasantslave AM I.”
I watched an interesting Youtube about training him on guns for John Wick–both he and the armorer/stunt coordinator took realism and safety EXTREMELY seriously, and it was very physical. I’m more of a fan because of his love of cars, bikes and racing, but he’s a dude.
I like him when he stays in his lane, as I can usually count on a solid performance from him. Sort of like Tom Cruise in that regard.
Generally terrible actor through most of the early and middle parts of his career, the wide variety of roles he took meant he sucked less in some and more in others.
I recall him being okay in River’s Edge. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure seemed to be a celebration of intentionally bad acting to portray protagonists the film itself regarded as jokes. With Johnny Mnemonic and the Matrix films, Reeves established himself as the premier cyber-thriller actor of his generation…though he was out-acted by Dolph Lundgren in the former and swamped by visual design and lame-ass philosophy in the latter (do we really care about Neo as a character or do we just want to see him do wild action shit?)
My perspective changed while watching Constantine and thinking not only did Reeves not suck, he was pretty good in the lead. A Scanner Darkly soon followed and although that was primarily a voice-only role, he once again demonstrated he could star in a movie and not ruin it. I only saw – and loathed – the first John Wick movie, a one-note performance in support of fetishized scenes of violence. Any potential for growth as an actor may have fallen off after that, at least temporarily while endless sequels and spin-offs are spewed out. There may still be hope that in the future when Reeves is too old to rely on stunts and visual EFX to make his performances essentially meaningless, he may possibly be able to stretch his limited emotional range.
I like his more recent non-action movie performances, like Destination wedding or some cameos I’ve seen. Maybe it’s less about acting and more that he always seems to play himself, and since he (apparently) is a nice human being, that comes across as authentic.
I saw Adam Driver recently and I feel like that is what Keanu Reeves would be like if he was a stronger actor (similar looks and forceful impression in an understated manner).
He has an expressive face. In the silent movie era, he would have been a superstar. It’s just that his voice causes Bill and Ted flashbacks.
I liked his performance in Little Buddha. One expects mythological figures to speak strangely, so his vocal patterns did not bother me.
He has generally been likable when playing the romantic partner of a woman who had a bigger role than him. As long as it does not require a British accent.
As a fan of the Hellblazer comics, the thought of transplanting John Constantine to the U.S. horrified me. But, Reeves did as well as any American actor could have.