Star: Keanu Reeves

Keanu Reeves is known for being one of the nice guys in Hollywood. Everyone loves him, and he doesn’t have a bad word to say about anyone, but he has occasionally hinted at his discontentment with some of the darker things that happen in this world.

Keanu’s career initially gained momentum with movies like Bill & Ted, Point Break, Speed, and Johnny Mnemonic; then he took things to a whole ‘nother level when he starred as the main man in arguably the most iconic movie ever made: The Matrix. He also had a resurgence as an action hero in recent years after performing well in Man Of Tai Chi and 47 Ronin then starring as John Wick in the cult classic saga of assassin themed movies by that name.

Keanu is not much of a martial artist, but he has learnt a few bits to help him in his roles. He’s a great actor, he’s athletically trim, he makes a likeable character, and undoubtedly has always had the talent to become a great martial artist if ever he wanted to be.

Johnny Mnemonic (1995) – Keanu Reeves, Dina Meyer, Dolph Lundgren and Udo Kier

This movie features Hackers style music & visuals, which is not surprising since it’s from the same year (1995).

It also features agents in long black leather coats, and probably inspired many things about The Matrix, except that this movie is about the data being stored inside a cybernetically enhanced human, rather than the human’s mind being captured by a virtual matrix. Although there is one woman who lives on in a virtual realm after dying, like a kind of AI. Keanu Reeves‘s character Johnny even does a bit of Tai Chi in this movie, early on, to help cope with brain capacity overload.

Dina Meyer plays Jane, the cybernetically enhanced bodyguard Johnny hires to save his life and help him get where he needs to be. They become quite close.

A youngish Dolph Lundren (in his mid to late 30s) with long messy hair plays one of the main baddies.

Udo Kier (the pureblood burnt in the sun, in Blade) plays one of the main characters early on, who double crosses Johnny then is killed by the Yakuza when Johnny gets away.

This movie was probably great in its day, and is still quite memorable but the pace is a bit slow and the action is a bit mild by the best of modern standards. Still, the acting quality is real even if they seem to be slightly winging it with a shallow plot and loose script put together on the fly.

By half way through, this movie looks set for a Below Average rating, but that’s no knock on the acting level, it’s more due to the datedness of the special effects and the tameness of adrenaline, and with all that considered, it’s quite a respectable rating. Some bits are of course better than others. But the second hour is very trashy throughout — barely watchable in fact. So I think a final score of So-So is plenty fair, if not generous.

John Wick (2014) – Keanu Reeves

Utterly boring first 10 minutes — highly skippable. To say this movie is slow to get going would be an understatement.

By half way in the action has become interesting. But by half way through it’s clear that the movie is still quite hollow — lacking depth of characters or plot. Endless plain combat scenes laced with disco lights and death metal music, and monotonous discussions between action scenes, doesn’t really constitute a good movie in my view — for this reason I give it a Below Average rating, contrary to all the marketing hype around this movie series. It’s like a messy version of Hitman, without the atmosphere, without the attractive woman, and pretty much without anything whatsoever.

Sequels

If you love this movie, you’re in luck because there are many sequels.

The first three movies are all on a similar level — that’s John Wick (2014) and John Wick Chapter 2 (2017) and John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum (2019).

Then the fourth movie — John Wick Chapter 4 (2023) — and the spinoff that followed — Ballerina (2025) — were both slightly better — I rated them Bang Average.

John Wick Chapter 2 (2017) – Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne

The first 20 minutes of this video are a reminder of everything that was wrong with the last movie — pure mindless violence, with no plot or concept behind it. And that’s coming from a Keanu Reeves fan.

By 45 minutes in, Wick’s been given his mission and starts preparing for it, and we start to meet the woman he’s tasked with killing. Literally nothing else has happened in this movie yet. By an hour in, he’s done the job, and back at the hotel, drinking with the guy who was trying to kill him.

By 75 minutes in, there’s an open contract out on John Wick — every assassin in the network is not gunning for him, and things have just become interesting — but it took more than half the movie to get here, and that’s the length of a short movie in itself.

I’m going to rate this movie Below Average, on a par with the original and for all the same reasons.

85 minutes in we meet an overweight Laurence Fishburne in some kind of Matrix cast reuniting.

John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum (2019) – Keanu Reeves, Halle Berry, Ian McShane and Laurence Fishburne

This movie follows on seamlessly from the last one, as if it’s one double length movie — similar to The Matrix 2 & 3 in this regard.

This movie gets off to a much quicker start than he previous two, although John Wick, played by Keanu Reeves, seems to have found himself in quite a dilemma from the outset, and the violence is rather longwinded, hollow & chaotic. A bit of plot wouldn’t go a miss here.

40 minutes in, while Wick is seeking refuge, we meet a middle aged Halle Berry.

Interesting plot twist 90 minutes in as Wick & Winston go up against the High Table from their deconsecrated hotel. It’s at this point that the movie looks set to earn a higher rating than those before it, but 90 minutes is already the length of a short movie, so surely it’s too little too late and this movie deserves a rating equal to the previous two: Below Average. In the end, Below Average it is, since even after the interesting plot twist, there’s so little to this movie but mindless longwinded violence.

John Wick Chapter 4 (2023) – Keanu Reeves

This movie is a good half hour longer than any previous John Wick movie — it’s nearly 3 hours long! And the others had little plot between their very longwinded hollow violence scenes, so let’s hope this one isn’t just an extra dose of the same.

This movie kicks off with a very basic continuation of the very cool cliffhanger the previous movie ended on. The first 20 minutes proceed to indoctrinate us toward wimpy subservience to authority and to political correctness, to the detriment of our personal standards.

By 20 minutes in we’ve already met Keanu Reeves (John Wick), a fat old Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus from The Matrix), an ugly old Donnie Yen (from the Ip Man movies), Ian McShane (New York’s Continental Hotel Manager from the previous John Wick movies), Bill Skarsgård (who looks like a secret son of Steve Buscemi) and Hiroyuki Sanada (from Mortal Kombat 2021, and the planned 2026 sequel — as well as The Wolverine 2013 — and 47 Ronin 2013 alongside Keanu — acting here as Osaka Japan’s Continental Hotel Manager).

Soon we’ll also meet Scott Adkins (who should need no introduction) and by 25 minutes in we also meet Marko Zaror (from Undisputed III 2010 alongside Scott Adkins) who really shines in his role here — Zaror may even be the understated star of this show.

Donnie Yen’s been given quite a hotshot role here, as a blind man who fights better than practically anyone else, but he doesn’t impress me personally — he’s got quite a fish face on him, like Elon Musk and (Musk’s possible secret father) Pol Pot. Considering his star-power vs stardom imbalance, I’d expect he’s half Jewish, and the lead female in this movie probably is too, for similar reasons. Indeed, these Hollywood guys like to keep it in the family, even while representing different races with the help of their half-breed relatives who so often stick out like sore thumbs due to their lack of true talent.

In the end, I rate this movie Bang Average which is a level above all the previous John Wick movies since it has a slightly more interesting plot than those before it — it’s not just long scenes of hollow violence this time round, there’s a bit more to it. Still a bit thin, but not quite as bad as the others were. It has several new interesting characters too. Well done to the John Wick team for the improvement — this saga was a slow burner — hopefully they can improve it further if they ever make a fifth movie.

Ballerina (2025) – Keanu Reeves and Ana De Armas

This movie is set within the Josh Wick universe, with many of the familiar faces including John Wick himself played by Keanu Reeves, and it’s pretty much a carbon copy of the same movie format, but this time Wick is just a supporting character near the end, while Ana De Armas playing Ballerina is the star of the show.

To its credit, its story may be better than some of the John Wick movies, but it’s not better than them all. And since it has the typical dry action and slow pace, I’m going to rate it Bang Average after weighing up its mix of pros and cons.

The Matrix Resurrections (2021) – Keanu Reeves

This is the fourth instalment of The Matrix, which waited 18 years since the trilogy came out in 2003, so understandably some of the old characters are missing or replaced (Morpheus is no longer played by Laurence Fishburne, and Agent Smith has changed face) and those actors who returned are much older now – Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) are now both in their mid 50s, pushing near 60, which makes their romance a bit less glamorous to say the least. Still, Keanu and Carrie-Anne did alright, and Jessica Henwick (of Marvel’s Iron Fist) makes a very refreshing addition to the cast – she’s probably the best thing about this movie. There’s even a small role for Priyanka Chopra – she did alright too.

Jada Pinkett’s role as the elderly leader of the new city was not so fun – her face was covered in a disgusting looking mask to age her, and her attitude was grossly callous with a false sense of nobility.

The writers seem to have got carried away with psychology this time, and the fight scenes are less succinct here. Replays from previous movies are abundant. Neo can’t fly anymore but is throwing chi balls like there’s no tomorrow. There’s also a strong zombie horde theme, like so many movies released around the same year (representing the rumoured side-effects (or primary intended effects) of something people started adding to their bloodstream since late 2020 / early 2021).

All in all, The Matrix (IV) Resurrections deserves a 7/10 for my taste, since it’s fairly watchable and mildly entertaining. This movie is several levels below the original. Still, there is a fair amount of the good stuff that you’d expect from any Matrix movie. Best viewed soon after seeing the original movie, or after watching the entire trilogy that precedes it.

47 Ronin (2013) – Keanu Reeves

47 Ronin (2013)

There are some great action scenes in this movie, with great backstory to them. But it’s also a very cold & lonely, depressing movie for the most part, and the ending reflects this most of all. So you may love this movie the first one or two times you watch it, as I did, but once I got used to it, I had to balance its pros & cons to arrive at the rating of Decent – one level better than a mere OK.

There’s way too much glorification of suicide in this movie. In reality, I believe there’s nothing honourable about suicide – it’s among the greatest of sins. And there’s nothing glorious about pride & honour – that’s a minor sin, best replaced with humility. So the fact that everyone voluntarily suicides to honour their “lord” in this movie, makes it quite off-putting. It’s quite sacrilegious in this way. But it still has some great action scenes with some great script detail and great screenplay by some great cast members, so I guess I have a love-hate relationship with this movie.

Keanu Reeves stars in 47 Ronin as a half-breed man trained by demons and capable of all their tricks. I’m not sure if half-breed means he’s half Japanese, half white; or if it means he’s half human, half demon. Anyway, he was wronged and banished from his hometown, then teamed up with other banished ronins (former samurai, whose master was killed) to take back his hometown and rescue the princess from a wedding she wasn’t comfortable with. That’s the story in a nutshell. The acting and action is good but the story is frequently gloomy and depressing so it’s a movie of pros and cons for fans of the smooth action hero genre like myself.

Keanu is his usual self. He does a decent job here and is supported by good choreography and special effects.

His main sidekick in this movie – a banished Samarai who frees him from slavery and joins him in rescuing the princess, is played well by Hiroyuki Sanada.

The leader of all Japan, who doesn’t get much screentime but still adds plenty of value to this movie, is played by the legendary Japanese-American actor Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (from Licence To Kill 1989 with Timothy Dalton; Showdown in Little Tokyo 1991 with Brandon Lee & Dolph Lundgren; Mortal Kombat 1995 with Christopher Lambert; Elektra 2005 with Jennifer Garner; Tekken 2009 & 2014, and many more movies aside from these classics).

The Matrix (1999) – Keanu Reeves

The Matrix poster

ACTION BUSYNESS ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
MOOD SETTING ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
SCRIPT COHESION ⭐⭐⭐⭐
PLOT DENSITY ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This quality of movie simply cannot exist without high budget, great lead actors and a lot of love & dedication by the writers, producers and some supporting cast.

The Matrix is an action-packed, convincing sci-fi thriller with a significant element of martial arts although not performed by martial artists – it’s all about the acting, stunts and special effects here. From instant (computer-assisted) learning of kung fu and other martial arts which are exhibited with great camerawork, to the eccentric use of guns and stunts – this movie is a great example of what can happen when people make a real effort and don’t cut corners in producing a movie that was cutting edge for its time.

A cool plot involving hacking and conspiracies make this sci-fi both believable and doubly entertaining. This is a classic performance by Keanu Reeves, who has made many great action movies, including several John Wick movies more recently, but The Matrix saga stands out as something extra special to Keanu and to his fans who constantly remind him of it. It has transcended the movie industry, especially in recent years where conspiracies abound.

Due to the overall quality of acting and production, I give this movie a 9.5/10 – to get a perfect 10 it would probably need a more genuine representation of great martial arts training exercises, and it would need a deeper, broader or generally more significant base of philosophical teaching behind the movie. These are of course both areas this movie has significantly worked on, I just think it’s still lacking something in these departments.

Still, it’s an excellent movie as it is, from start to finish, and the only real disappointment is how its inevitable sequels don’t manage to maintain the standard set by the original although they are still well worth watching sequentially, but sometimes you might still want to enjoy the original by itself.

It’s not so easy to rewatch every year like Bloodsport is, but what it lacks in sustained comfortable vibe, it makes up for in frequently cutting-edge features. The Matrix has more of an intermittently chilling vibe – it’s not the same genre as Bloodsport and doesn’t try to be – they are both masterpieces in their own niche genres. Like apples & pears, they can’t easily be compared. When asked what’s my favourite movie, I tend to say Bloodsport for simplicity and to avoid pushing something that I have mixed feelings about, but in an objective transparent assessment I can not say it’s definitely any better than The Matrix – I rate them both about equally and can not choose a clear favourite between them.

The Matrix is packed with action in all its forms, with a few drama-ish scenes between. It includes a bit of fighting, a bit of running, a lot of shooting, and there’s a strange kind of war going on. The plot is almost confusing, but it kind of works and has become a massive cult classic. The cast includes several strong performances and a few less strong.