10 most epic movies9/4/2023 ![]() After the success of the first film – in which Reeves’ un-retired hitman kills a dozen people over the honour of his car and a much-mourned puppy – there’s a real sense of confidence here: tonally, in the action set-pieces, and in the character himself. But if you slipped us a big gold coin and forced us to pick just one? Chapter Two perhaps edges it. Read the Empire review 6) My Own Private Idahoįrankly, every John Wick film could make this list. The scene in which he talks with Helen’s unhappy, introverted son Garry (a 14-year-old Joaquin – then Leaf – Phoenix), then reporting back to Helen that Garry is now reassured that there’s nothing wrong with "slapping the salami", before going straight into a recollection of his own abusive father, is magnificently touching, revealing that there was so much more to the young Reeves than met the eye. He is, though, a wise young man with hidden depths. To Dianne Wiest’s matriarch Helen, her daughter Julie’s ( Martha Plimpton) boyfriend at first glance seems unsavoury, forever bouncing about, prone to dangerous drag racing and a fondness for taking sexy naked photos of himself and Julie. A highlight, though, is 24-year-old Keanu Reeves as the perpetually-lively Tod. Ron Howard’s comedy-drama – a parental odyssey via multiple generations of an extended family – has it all: laughs, tears, and Steve Martin making balloon animals. It’s a perfectly judged bit of simultaneous piss-taking and myth-making – bolstering Reeves’ status as One Of The Good Guys, launching 1000 GIFs, and inspiring Park’s character to write catchy hip-hop song ‘I Punched Keanu Reeves’ (sample lyric: “I’m telling you for real, I punched Neo / He could duck bullets but he couldn’t duck me”). “The only stars that matter,” Reeves says, “are the ones you look at when you dream.” Delicious. I missed your smell.” Even Marcus’ girlfriend Jenny admits she’s starstruck. “I missed your soul,” he growls between snogs. Reeves swishes in to a pretentious restaurant all slow-mo, throwing out air kisses, shaking hands, dropping jaws – and, indeed drawers – in custom Tom Ford and Damien Hirst glasses with no lenses. In Nahnatchka Khan’s romantic comedy he cameos as a version of himself, putting the fear of God into Randall Park’s Marcus as his crush Sasha’s (Ali Wong) new boyfriend – a fun idea, beautifully executed. The film that really crystallised the Reeves-vival (we’re coining it now). From his action classics, to his daffy comedies and his most self-aware role ever, read Empire’s list of the best Keanu Reeves movies. His superpower isn't dodging bullets – it's really meaning it. Keanu Reeves doesn’t do irony, but he does slowly dawning disbelief like nobody else. And tying it all together is the sense that, underneath it all, he very earnestly believes in whatever his characters are doing. ![]() He is a doofus he will kill you using a library book. He has the spaced-out aura of The Dude until the very moment a switch flips in his head, and he goes into the I-must-break-you mode which has left piles of bad lads beaten in his wake. ![]() Over the last three decades he’s found a way to be both soft and rough, cosmic and earthy. ![]() ![]() He started out as a goofball, then hardened into a streamlined, teeth-gritted action star, before reinventing what it even meant to be a streamlined, teeth-gritted action star. But the key to the Tao of Keanu is that he is all things at once. Read old reviews of his work, and there’s a sense that nobody knew quite how seriously to take him – either surprisingly soft for such a lethal unit, or surprisingly tough for a man with such a gentle energy. There was once a time – many, many moons ago – when Keanu Reeves was thought by many to be little more than a cardboard-cutout Hollywood lunk. ![]()
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