Keanu Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Keanu Blu-ray Movie Review

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Reviewed by Michael Reuben July 31, 2016

Contemporary film is littered with the failed efforts of talented sketch comedians who underestimate the challenges of the big screen. SNL is responsible for more than its share, but it can't be blamed for Keanu, the first feature from Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, fresh off their successful five-year run on Comedy Central as Key & Peele. Working with their TV director, Peter Atencio, the duo offers a haphazard yarn that veers wildly from one skit to another without ever finding a consistent tone.

"Keanu" is the name given by heart-broken stoner Rell (Peele) to a kitten who appears on his doorstep just after his girlfriend has dumped him. Little does Rell know that "Keanu" is really Iglesias, the beloved pet of King Diaz (Ian Casselberry), a Mexican drug lord who has just been assassinated, along with all of his crew, by the ruthless Allentown Boys. The opening sequence, as the camera follows Keanu/Iglesias darting through every nook and cranny of a drug lab while bullets fly and squibs explode, is the single best thing in the film—and it's downhill from there.

Rell isn't the only man in whom the cat inspires unfathomable devotion. King Diaz's cousin, Bacon (Luis Guzmán), wants him, and the Allentown Boys (played by Key and Peele in heavy makeup) take an instant liking to the cat, even as they are mowing down its owner. Equally smitten is Cheddar (Method Man), head of the 17th Street Blips and rival to Bacon and King Diaz. When Cheddar's minions kidnap (kitten-nap?) Rell's new animal companion, he persuades his straitlaced cousin, Clarence (Key), to help him bluff their way into Cheddar's headquarters to recover Keanu.

Using rivalry for the titular kitten as a pretext, Keanu allows Rell and Clarence to riff on familiar Key & Peele themes of celebrity, racial stereotypes and pop culture. Some routines hit their targets, and one could probably cull a good episode (or even two) of the team's old show out of Keanu, but overall it's a lazy enterprise. Sketch persona and movie characters are two different breeds; the former are creatures of the moment, while the latter have to be credible and consistent throughout a story's beginning, middle and end. Rell and Clarence begin as two regular middle class guys who are strangers to violence and terrified of thugs, and much of Keanu involves their ludicrous attempts to masquerade as gangstas. In the crunch, though, they prove to be just as instinctively proficient at firing guns and killing their adversaries as any of Cheddar's crew, thereby validating the very stereotype they're supposed to be mocking. That isn't comic subversion; it's just sloppy writing.

Nia Long is wasted as Clarence's wife, who inexplicably takes off for the weekend with their daughter, the kid's friend and the friend's father, ditching her husband for no obvious reason while exhorting him to be himself. More effective is Tiffany Hadish as "Hi-C", one of Cheddar's tough-talking lieutenants, who's keeping a lot of secrets. Anna Faris appears as an alternate version of herself; she's supposed to be a buyer of Cheddar's new high-potency product, and I challenge anyone to offer a coherent explanation of what happens in her scenes. SNL alum Will Forte plays Rell's neighbor and weed dealer, Hulka, and his character is the classic white-guy-who-wants-to-be-black. It's past time to retire this cliche, which Gary Oldman did earlier and better in True Romance.

Keanu Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shot on Alexa by Jas Shelton (HBO's Togetherness), Keanu arrives from Warner on a proficient 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray sporting a clean and detailed image with solid blacks and saturated colors. As Clarence and Rell descend further into their criminal masquerade, Shelton and director Atencio use frequent washes of red and green to give the frame richness and texture. Except for a drug-induced hallucination where Clarence imagines himself in a George Michael video, the visual style seems to have been designed to distinguish Keanu from the Key & Peele show. The average bitrate of 25.91 Mbps is the norm for Blu-rays from Warner's theatrical group.

Keanu Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Keanu's lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack effectively punches home the film's gunfights and concluding car chase, but its greatest strength is the musical contrast between the tuneful George Michael classics adored by Clarence and the thunderous rap beats associated with Cheddar and his gang. Incidental score is credited to Steve Jablonsky (Pain & Gain) and Nathan Whitehead (The Purge). Dialogue is clearly rendered, and so are the kitten's plaintive meows.

Keanu Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Keanu: My First Movie (1080p; 1.78:1; 3:05): Mock conversations with the film's "star".



• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 2.40:1; 15:13): The individual scenes are not separately selectable, but each is preceded by an intertitle.
• Substitute Teacher
• I Don't Think That God Works Like That
• It's Not Over
• Dungeons and Dragons
• Keys
• Ain't Gonna Be No Tomorrow
• I Like to Use My Hands
• Dirty Nails, Dirty Dick



• Gag Reel (1080p; 2.40:1; 5:39): Often funnier than the film.



• Trailers: The film's trailer is not included. At startup, the disc plays a trailer for The Nice Guys and the usual Warner promo for digital copies.

Keanu Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

With the Key & Peele show at an end, fans of the innovative duo are no doubt happy to see them return to their old tricks, but there's a reason why Keanu underperformed at the box office. They can do better. A solid Blu-ray on its technical merits, but the film is a missed opportunity.