Keanu

Clarence (Keegan-Michael Key) is a conservative suburbanite with a wife and child. His cousin, Rell (Jordan Peele), is a bong-smoking slacker. Then one day Rell finds a kitten on his doorstep and immediately takes it in. He names the kitten Keanu. A few weeks later, in a case of mistaken identity, members of the Blips drug gang break into his house, ransack it and take Keanu. Rell and Clarence set off into Blips territory to recover Keanu.

Only watched this because it stars Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. Loved their comedy show, Key and Peele, and a full-length comedy feature film starring them sounded promising.

The movie certainly retains much of the trademark Key and Peele humour. Add in an absurd-yet-fun plot and a cute kitten and you have a good comedy movie. Some great scenes and lines. Key and Peele are in fine form in the lead roles, with spot-on delivery and the wonderful comedic chemistry that their TV show demonstrated.

Not brilliant though. As with many transitions from TV to film, the momentum and ideas seem to diminish as the movie goes on - the core plot line proves difficult to sustain for 90+ minutes. The comedy is still there, but the movie becomes more uneven the further into it you go. Some pretty weak scenes towards the end. The plot becomes quite haphazard and farcical.

Overall, however, Keanu is good fun and well worth watching.

First off, I love Key & Peele... I was devastated when I realized that the last episode was their series finale. The movie plays as a weird surreal action movie... I guess it's like Ride Along but played with less slap stick. After watching the trailer multiple times, I figured Keanu was going to have a lot more... but the trailer had all the best parts and the best punchlines.

The plot is a bit shallow as the premise is a runaway kitten and then being found and then going to get the kitten back from captures. I guess you can compare this with Pineapple Express which basically is a simple story of stoners running away... but Pineapple Express has a ton of interesting characters and weirdo situations. Keanu had a couple of weird situations and no real interesting characters except one cameo. Watch the trailer and you're good - it pretty much sums up the entire film and all it's jokes.

Key and Peele have established themselves with their show as two of the leaders of small screen comedy. Their brand of comedy pokes fun at stereotypes and generic film tropes, with heavy influences from the cinema world. Their skits are often cinematic and ridiculous, but in the best kinds of way. Now, they carry that over to an actual movie and the results are often times hilarious. While not always successful, when they are, Keanu is laugh out loud funny. With huge influences from traditional cinema, ranging from romantic comedy to 80's action, Keanu covers a range of genres, providing that same ridiculous kind of comedy fans are used to.

The film kicks off with a bang, delivering a stylish opening action scene that introduces us to the titular Keanu, a cute-beyond-words kitten that you immediately fall in love with. We're then introduced to our dynamic duo, Rell, a man-child lacking direction in his life who has recently lost his girlfriend, and Clarence, the straight arrow of the two who is happily married, but is so caught up in trying to please everyone else, he never takes time for himself. Once Keanu enters the picture, the two find themselves spiraling downward into a world of gang warfare, crime, and mistaken identity, all in pursuit of retrieving the adorable little Keanu.

If you've seen Key & Peele, the humor here will feel familiar. Working under the show's director, Peter Atencio, and with Peele in the writer's seat, all have a firm grasp of how to craft cinema and then skewer it. Both characters constantly feel out of place while at the same time handling themselves well, and much of the comedy comes from both the familiar fish out of water story and some surprises. What helps is that the film never really feels forced. Our heroes never feel too unnatural in their actions, though it is slightly mystifying that they are continuously believed to be tougher than they actually are. The action is well done too, with it feeling like it wouldn't be out of place in an action movie. And Keanu replacing what would be a person in distress makes for a hilarious spoof on traditional damsel- in-distress type tropes. Our villains also fare well, with one particular hilarious scene seeing Clarence bond with other gangsters over George Michael music.

As stated above, not every joke works, with several falling flat or getting little more than a chuckle, but more often than not the movie knows when to end a joke or just what to do to surprise or make the audience laugh. It also helps to know movies well to catch several of the references or tropes. Where the film could have made many missteps, it makes wise decisions in terms of balancing comedy, action, and drama and knows when it's comedy may be going too far and for too long. I often wondered if Key and Peele would take their comedy to the film world, as they have always clearly loved movies, and now that they've finally done so, they have delivered. Not a perfect comedy, but a very funny one and shows that the two have promise for a future in the cinema world. It's my hope that Keanu is just the beginning for these two.

Keanu is a comedy film about nerdy friends who disguise as gangsters to steal their kitten. The film stars Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key, best known for their Comedy Central sketch series Key & Peele. They play Rell, the besotted owner of Keanu the kitten, and his uptight George Michael-loving cousin Clarence. The film has a geeky, film-literate flavor to some of the humor, which defuses the semi-ironic gangster posturing. A cameo from Anna Faris is unexpected and not entirely successful. The central joke, that even the most ruthless underworld drug wholesalers are putty in the paws of an adorably cute kitten, is a good one but not enough to sustain an entire movie. The film is intended for the duo's loyal fans, introducing them to a wider audience, and directing at children. However, the movie is a weirdly generic fish-out-of-water tale, where bungling cowards impersonate tough guys, familiar territory for male comedy duos past and present. Key and Peele play their familiar, nerdy suburban characters, with Clarence being a mild-mannered people-pleaser and his cousin Rell being a single, stoner artist and graphic designer. Keanu, played by a team of seven kittens, fills the hole in Clarence's heart and becomes his artistic muse. The film's chemistry is one of its main assets, and the central joke, that even the most ruthless underworld drug wholesalers are putty in the paws of an adorably cute kitten, is a good one but not enough to sustain an entire movie. Key & Peele, a group known for their roles in Hollywood comedy, can act outside of their signature characters. Their intense friendship and individual personalities draw viewers in, but their bromance is absent in this show. The characters play it straight, with little frisson between them, and their black nerdiness is neglected. Keanu has potential, but the code-switching shtick becomes tiresome and neglects their black nerdiness. However, the team works to translate representations of black masculine anger and impenetrability into comedy, revealing the adorable kittens underneath the swagger. The film also satisfied the guilty pleasure of rappers/actors, with Method (Acting) Man defying the adage of avoiding performances with children or animals. Overall, Key & Peele's performance is enjoyable and satisfying, despite the potential for more mature roles. Keanu is a film about a family of gang members who are chased by the 17th Street Blips, a savage gang of former Bloods and Crips. The cousins, led by Will Forte, pursue the kitten into the urban underworld of L. A., where they bond with the Blips and battle drug kingpins and a crime duo. The film has only a single comic narrative setup and extended joke, which is part of the problem with the film. While Key & Peele are appealing on the big screen, the film feels declawed and lacks anything we haven't seen before, except for the kitten. The production feels televisual, staged in enclosed spaces like cars, clubs, and rooftops. The cousins visit urban spaces explored in their program, such as the Club, strip joints, back alleys, and vacant lots. However, the hood and neighborhood are flat, missing the playful surrealism that animates these quotidian urban and suburban spaces and the eccentric characters that occupy them in the show.

I went into this thinking it was going to be a dumb way to pass the time, as I wasn't a fan of their sketch comedy and a couple of their earlier works. But this movie surprised me - it was fun!

There's a lot of good actors and actresses in this, some fun cameos, and the story while completely absurd is entertaining and will keep you laughing throughout. It's also got a lot of really well done action sequences, specifically at the beginning and end, which you wouldn't expect from this type of movie.

Don't judge a book by its cover with this one. Yes it's silly, but it's really well done and definitely entertaining.