Keanu Review

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if Key and Peele got to do their own feature length movie? Now you don't have to wonder because it's here! I'm sure most of you reading this review probably already know who Key and Peele are, but just to cover my bases, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele are two of the more popular comedians in our day and our most known for their sketch comedy series on Comedy Central titled Key & Peele, which concluded recently. If you haven't seen any of their sketches, search Key and Peele on YouTube and enjoy. These two are just a blast to watch! To get an idea of how popular they are, they're highest viewed sketch on YouTube, "Substitute Teacher," has over 90 million views. Both Key and Peele have shown up on the big screen before, but Keanu is their first feature-length movie that they have made together. When it comes to comedies, I really only have one requirement. I want to laugh. If I laughed, then the movie served its purpose. And yes, Keanu made me laugh. Quite a bit actually, so it's definitely a movie I will recommend if you want to go and laugh, especially if you are a fan of Key and Peele.

The story in the movie is rather hilarious and never once do they take themselves seriously, so it's important for the audience to not take it seriously. The whole movie is centered around a little kitten that Peele names Keanu. By goodness this is the most adorable kitten you will ever see. Personally I have an unashamed bias there as I love cats. Always have. Always will. So take that for what it's worth. If you hate cats, well, I don't know how you could hate this cat, but whatever. The cat's previous owner gets killed in the beginning by some crazy psychos, who fall in love with the cat. But the cat escapes and winds up on Peele's doorstep. He just broke up with his girlfriend and thus this cat comes to him at the perfect time. There is an instant bond and he practically spends all his waking moment with this cat. However, the cat ends up getting kidnapped by a gang and so Peele enlists the help of his cousin, Key, to go rescue the cat. In order to try to get him back, they have to act as gang members in order to fit in and this leads to an absolutely hilarious journey for these two. Of course this isn't very deep or emotional, but you just have to sit back and enjoy the ride. Is it like a 100-minute-long Key and Peele sketch? Sure. But it works fantastically well!

Like I said, when it comes to comedies, I really just want to be able to laugh. This may seem like a simple thing, but I have to be honest that a lot of comedies these days aren't very tasteful to me. You'll notice that there are a lot of comedies that are released and for the most part I don't review them. That's because I usually skip them. Most of the comedy these days is centered around dirty humor and that just doesn't make me laugh. This isn't just in R-rated, raunch coms either. This type of comedy is present in PG-13 or even subtly in PG movies as well and very much present in modern-day sit coms. In fact, most of sit coms these days are just packed full of dirty humor and that just frustrates me. So I did go into Keanu slightly weary, hoping that there was going to some honest, clean humor that was actually funny to me. This is one of the reasons why I waited a bit to see this movie and thus you are getting this review now instead of a week ago when it came out. I'm happy to report that this movie is genuinely funny. Key and Peele know how to do comedy and thus they have a ton of comedic chemistry in this movie, which is why this works so well. Is the movie full of gut-busting humor that nearly has you in tears the whole movie? Perhaps not. But the humor is consistent throughout.

My biggest criticisms of the movie comes with the action in the movie. I wasn't expecting Keanu to be an all-out action comedy. But that's what it was. And the action honestly wasn't super entertaining. As I stated earlier, this is a movie that doesn't take itself seriously at all. There's not a lot of drama and emotion in the movie that really grabs you. This is just supposed to be a fun movie where you sit back and enjoy. And suddenly while you are doing so, the movie just starts to get extremely violent and it doesn't really fit with the tone of the movie. The last act of the movie is especially rough when it comes to this as it's almost more violent, gory action than funny humor. I'm not saying that I'm against action comedies. I really enjoyed Deadpool from earlier this year. It's just that in this instance Keanu was tonally inconsistent at times for me. They could've toned down the action as well as some other elements of the movie and made this a PG-13 rated comedy. Not that I'm a huge stickler for ratings as you might've been able to tell, it's just that in this instance I think that would've been a better fit for Key and Peele in this debut. And I also think it would've made them more money. You can't call Keanu a box office bomb due to the fact that it didn't cost very much to make, but this could've done better than $9.5 million for it's opening weekend.

Overall, though, I did have a good time with this movie. This is a shorter review than I've been doing recently, but this is a very simple movie, so I don't feel I need to say a ton to get my point across in this instance. If you like Key and Peele, I think this is a movie that you should check out because I think you will enjoy it. Those two know how to do comedy and they have great comedic chemistry throughout that just makes this movie a blast. The story isn't deep and the movie isn't that emotional. It also probably didn't need to be as violent and graphic as it was as the third act of the movie really wasn't that great. But if you are having a down day and you just want to go see a movie that will cheer you up and make you laugh, this is a pretty good option. Or if you're curious about what Key and Peele's first movie is like, this is also worth checking out. As long as you don't expect something amazing or incredibly awesome, this is a decent movie that you can have fun with. It's no Deadpool, but it's a definitely a good first effort for Key and Peele. I hope these two continue to do movies together because I'd be really curious to see what they can come up with next. My grade for Keanu is a 7/10.