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(1964– ). Canadian actor.
In the beginning, when Reeves emerged as yet
another appealing celluloid teenager of the 1980s, no such problems were in
evidence. Competent in forgettable fluff like Young Again and Babes
in Toyland, he was surprisingly central to the ensemble comedy Parenthood
(1989), effortlessly holding his own amidst veterans like Steve Martin, Mary
Steenburgen, and Diane Weist. But special attention must be reserved for his
delightful performances in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill
and Ted's Bogus Journey. We all knew that his Ted was even stupider than
Alex Winter's Bill, but he made utter stupidity so charmingly attractive that
we were all rooting wholeheartedly for his triumphs over more intelligent
adversaries.
But he was getting too old to play
adolescents like Ted, so Reeves needed to reinvent himself in the 1990s. A few
disconcerting stumbles ensued: given the nothing part of Jonathan Harker in Bram
Stoker's Dracula, he did nothing with it, and he also found himself
helpless amidst the complete miscalculation that was Little Buddha. The
unfortunate turning point in his career, paradoxically, was an enormously
popular film, Speed; realizing that the heroes of action films had to be
Cool, Reeves worked overtime to project this quality, and did so reasonably
well. But something about being Cool must have unsettled Reeves, perhaps
because it was not in his nature, and in subsequent endeavors with similar
demands he couldn't come close to recapturing his inaugural success.
While Reeves demonstrated some integrity in
turning down a huge paycheck to avoid the awful Speed 2: Cruise Control,
he cannot escape blame for the complete debacle that was Johnny Mnemonic.
Don't trust the reviews that attribute the failure of this film to its
inexperienced director, for this was a lively and imaginative film that failed
only because of the stunning inertness of its protagonist. When a Hollywood veteran is being hopelessly outclassed by two moonlighting musicians, that
inexorably raises questions about the veteran's abilities. And so it is that
the only possible emotional response to this film is to holler at the screen,
"For heaven's sake, why didn't you make Ice-T or Henry Rollins the
hero?" Chain Reaction displayed no significant improvement, and the
major pleasure of The Devil's Advocate lies is watching Reeves get eaten
alive by a real actor, Al Pacino.
As directors Andy and Larry Wachowski
approached the Reeves Problem for The Matrix, they seemingly hit upon a
brilliant solution: to instruct or manipulate all the actors around Reeves to
act just as badly as he does, so his ineptitude doesn't stand out. Somehow, in
a film carried by the brilliant audacity of its concept and a unique visual
flair, the strategy worked, though one notes that, after two more rounds with
Reeves in the film's less successful sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The
Matrix Revolutions, Larry Fishburne and Carrie Anne-Moss have not been
particularly visible, their careers in ruin after being dragged down to
Reeves's level once too often.
I once thought I detected a genuine sense of guilt
in Reeves—unlike the similarly untalented Richard Gere and
Val KILMER,
Reeves seemed to know that he wasn't doing a good job, and it seemed to
bother him to be making so much money for such lousy work—which
inspired a hope that he might retire from acting, to live off his earnings and
seek inner peace while allowing other, more talented actors to obtain the
interesting roles that he keeps attracting. Unfortunately, however, big offers
have kept luring him back to the big screen, despite clear signs that audiences
were tiring of his monotonous numbness; his only success came in A Scanner
Darkly, where he was cast as a man whose mind was being destroyed by drugs
(so that his incompetent acting matched his character) and he was turned into a
cartoon (which did nothing to diminish his typically minimal expressiveness).
Perfectly suited to play the mute, emotionless robot Gort in the forthcoming
remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, Reeves instead has inexplicably
been cast as Klaatu, which is as disheartening as hearing that a forthcoming
remake of Citizen Kane will feature the Rock as Charles Foster Kane.
This time around, when Klaatu dies, no one will know the difference.
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