The Desert of the Real

I am up in the clouds right now, flying high. And no, not that kind of high. I'm on an airplane. That's right. Technology rocks. Free wifi on my flight. Totally loving in. It's given me the perfect opportunity to put out there what I realized on my earlier flight that has been aching to get out ever since.

I HAVE FINALLY FIGURED OUT WHAT'S WRONG WITH KEANU REEVES!

Life goal: accomplished. Keanu Reeves cannot believably be climactic. Whenever there is a big moment in a film—that’s when he fails. Remember that part in The Lake House when he cries?* Or that abysmal speech in Johnny Mnemonic where he stands on the New Jersey dump and dramatically proclaims “I…WANT…ROOM SERVICE!” (You probably don’t because most people haven’t seen that film unless they went to a weird school where they take lots of classes on robots and cyberpunk. But, trust me, it just doesn’t work. )

The audience can always tell that these are supposed to be major turning points and they can tell he’s trying so hard. That’s what makes it so incredibly sad (and bad).

You might be thinking The Matrix is the exception to this rule: WRONG! Trust me, as someone who is practically minoring in The Matrix, he still cannot pull it off. All the big moments of the film happen to him, not because of him. That classic stoner “Whoah” only works because it is so anticlimactic and nonchalant compared to what he just witnessed. All the exciting moments in the battle scenes have nothing to do with Keanu, they’re just awesome special effects. Whether or not the bullet stops infront of a wall or in front of Keanu Reeves, it's still going to be just as badass.

I feel much better with myself now that I’ve figured out why Keanu Reeves sucks so much. He just can’t climax, and that's that.

Oh and here's the Johnny Mnemonic video. It's so bad you really should watch it.


*The producer of this film came and spoke in one of my classes earlier this year. Even he apologized for this film. On a personal note though, I’ve seen it probably about four times and I’d see it again.