Wow! I agree!
Yes, I have seen every. single. one. of these movies. It's called "I was a teenager when The Matrix came out." So, yes, I watched every movie Keanu was in at that point. Exceptions: I didn't get through My Own Private Idaho or Little Buddha. The first because I was kinda confused by the gay hooker aspect. The second because IT WAS UNWATCHABLE. I tried watching with the sound off, and I still couldn't do it. I had a friend who made me look like I wasn't obsessed with it by comparison. And that's saying something given that a guy in my math class in high school saw me at the senior dance at the end of college and introduced me to his girlfriend by mentioning how I had pictures from The Matrix contact-papered to all my binders. So while my friend enabled me, I did watch all these of my own free will.
And I completely agree with their assessment. I loved Johnny Mnemonic ages before The Matrix. I had a poster of Keanu from that movie that had some stupid phrase on it like "MEET THE ULTIMATE HARDDRIVE." (Shut up!) But yeah, I agree that it was an awful movie now, for all that I had a dozen and one quotes from it written out all over the margins of notes and shit. I used to do that a lot--write down quotes I liked from movies on paper. This led to me writting out, from memory, the entire dialogue from The Matrix. In a related story, the ONLY time I ever got in trouble at school--any school--was because I got caught typing up the dialogue from that movie on a typewriter in a restricted area of school where my friends and I liked to hang out during lunch. I then had the chutzpah to go to an assisstant principal and demand the paper back, mostly out of humiliation at the idea that he might read it.
(This may seem like nonsense, but remember that The Matrix came out around the time of the Columbine shootings, so anything that made me look like a crazy person was not a good thing to have in the hands of an administrator.)
Back to the list: I have come around on Constantine, honestly. I was vaguely disappointed in it when I saw it, having read some Hellblazer at the time. But if you get past that, it's not so bad. And you couldn't find a better devil than Peter Stormare. Well, not unless it was John Glover, but it's a different kind of "better." Peter Stormare is the kind of Satan you imagine the real Satan would be--creepy, vaguely European, leaves you feeling like you've been slimed...
The Lake House was fluff, but I think Keanu and Sandra Bullock still had great chemistry. Then again, I think Speed is one of the best action movies of all time, so I'm biased. But The Devil's Advocate was pretty good, daring at the right times, and came out long before "Al Pacino tutors some youngin'" became a separate genre of film. Dracula--the less said, the better. Chain Reaction was terrible, but it did have Rachel Weisz, who's way hotter than Keanu plus she has an accent, so that got me through the movie.
The Gift is a movie that everyone should really see because it's this nexus of improbabilities. Keanu is terrifying in it. Katie Holmes is watchable. Cate Blanchett actually seems small and mousy instead of undeniably fabulous as we all know she is in everything ever. Giovanni Ribisi was so heart-breaking. Gary Cole, Greg Kinnear, Hillary Swank--it was just a surpassingly awesome bit of acting and writing from absolutely everyone involved. I loved it. And I loved that it proved Sam Raimi is more than just "that guy," the one that does Xena and Evil Dead and Spider-Man. I love those things, some more than others, but they don't get the respect they deserve. The Gift, though, no one can argue with.
About the only thing I disagreed with was A Scanner Darkly. I didn't love it, but like Constantine, I thought better of it after a little time away. Robert Downey Jr. (as if anyone needed telling at this point_ was amazing in it. The rotoscoping made his acting choices seem even more authentically twitchy. The technique also improve upon some of Keanu's stillness. I mean, it's a running gag about how emotionless and flat he is in movies, but that's not true. He's very animated in some movies (Bill and Ted's or Speed), but when he gets it into his head that he needsd to control his acting, he just buttons up and not much gets out. A Scanner Darkly plays up every little twitch you don't see him making, normally, and it's pretty effective. Shoot me over Winona Ryder, though. Blargh.
Speaking of Bill and Ted's: MOST EXCELLENT. I grant that Bogus Journey was not as good as the first movie, but it was still really awesome in its own right. And just as quoteable! "Dude, we're in heaven, and we just mugged three people!" "I know, we better get out of here before we ruin it for everybody else."
And I completely agree with their assessment. I loved Johnny Mnemonic ages before The Matrix. I had a poster of Keanu from that movie that had some stupid phrase on it like "MEET THE ULTIMATE HARDDRIVE." (Shut up!) But yeah, I agree that it was an awful movie now, for all that I had a dozen and one quotes from it written out all over the margins of notes and shit. I used to do that a lot--write down quotes I liked from movies on paper. This led to me writting out, from memory, the entire dialogue from The Matrix. In a related story, the ONLY time I ever got in trouble at school--any school--was because I got caught typing up the dialogue from that movie on a typewriter in a restricted area of school where my friends and I liked to hang out during lunch. I then had the chutzpah to go to an assisstant principal and demand the paper back, mostly out of humiliation at the idea that he might read it.
(This may seem like nonsense, but remember that The Matrix came out around the time of the Columbine shootings, so anything that made me look like a crazy person was not a good thing to have in the hands of an administrator.)
Back to the list: I have come around on Constantine, honestly. I was vaguely disappointed in it when I saw it, having read some Hellblazer at the time. But if you get past that, it's not so bad. And you couldn't find a better devil than Peter Stormare. Well, not unless it was John Glover, but it's a different kind of "better." Peter Stormare is the kind of Satan you imagine the real Satan would be--creepy, vaguely European, leaves you feeling like you've been slimed...
The Lake House was fluff, but I think Keanu and Sandra Bullock still had great chemistry. Then again, I think Speed is one of the best action movies of all time, so I'm biased. But The Devil's Advocate was pretty good, daring at the right times, and came out long before "Al Pacino tutors some youngin'" became a separate genre of film. Dracula--the less said, the better. Chain Reaction was terrible, but it did have Rachel Weisz, who's way hotter than Keanu plus she has an accent, so that got me through the movie.
The Gift is a movie that everyone should really see because it's this nexus of improbabilities. Keanu is terrifying in it. Katie Holmes is watchable. Cate Blanchett actually seems small and mousy instead of undeniably fabulous as we all know she is in everything ever. Giovanni Ribisi was so heart-breaking. Gary Cole, Greg Kinnear, Hillary Swank--it was just a surpassingly awesome bit of acting and writing from absolutely everyone involved. I loved it. And I loved that it proved Sam Raimi is more than just "that guy," the one that does Xena and Evil Dead and Spider-Man. I love those things, some more than others, but they don't get the respect they deserve. The Gift, though, no one can argue with.
About the only thing I disagreed with was A Scanner Darkly. I didn't love it, but like Constantine, I thought better of it after a little time away. Robert Downey Jr. (as if anyone needed telling at this point_ was amazing in it. The rotoscoping made his acting choices seem even more authentically twitchy. The technique also improve upon some of Keanu's stillness. I mean, it's a running gag about how emotionless and flat he is in movies, but that's not true. He's very animated in some movies (Bill and Ted's or Speed), but when he gets it into his head that he needsd to control his acting, he just buttons up and not much gets out. A Scanner Darkly plays up every little twitch you don't see him making, normally, and it's pretty effective. Shoot me over Winona Ryder, though. Blargh.
Speaking of Bill and Ted's: MOST EXCELLENT. I grant that Bogus Journey was not as good as the first movie, but it was still really awesome in its own right. And just as quoteable! "Dude, we're in heaven, and we just mugged three people!" "I know, we better get out of here before we ruin it for everybody else."