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Created May 02, 2016 11:29PM PST • Edited Jul 08, 2019 06:18AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Key & Peele come to the big screen in a big way in Keanu. As always, Black America is their subject: the contradictions, the testosterone, the taunting. Yet in a clever bit of misdirection, they focus on a tiny kitten.

   Worked for me as a fellow owner of a gray tabby. Mine’s named Buddy, not Keanu, plus he’s fully grown and unlikely to fall into the hands of gangsta thugs. Nor would I commit felonies to get him back. But it makes a fine setup for a fine mess of a movie, which is what Key & Peele’s comedy Keanu is, a fine flick.

   It’s jaws-b-dropping brazen, which is saying something in our decline-and-fall 21st century. The heroes of Keanu go all bipolar and shit, only Key & Peele don’t cycle between manic and depressed. They code-switch between sophisticated and street, suburban and skank, metrosexual and macho. It’s their male metier.

   The kitten is their adorable deus ex machina, their feline object of desire. Maguffins come no cuter.

   Keanu is not only LOL funny, a lot, it sharply reflects and amplifies powerful trends in America today.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Keegan-Michael Key & Jordan Peele play cousins who must get in touch with their inna-gangstas. You better believe they’re beyond good at it, having honed similar bits through countless sketches on MADtv, the Key and Peele show and elsewhere. Their knowingness is even more impressive than their acting.

   • Nia Long jumps off screen as Key’s wife of many years.
   • Method Man, of the Wu-Tang Clan, doesn’t have to stretch to play a fearsome gangsta.
   • Will Forte mugs effectively as a Zen motorcycle weed dealer. He’s not in Nebraska anymore.
   • Keanu Reeves voices Keanu the kitten during a drug hallucination.
   • Luis Guzmán mugs effectively as a high-rolling drug tycoon.
   • Tiffany Haddish simmers strongly as the evocatively named Hi-C.
   • Anna Faris boldly plays her doppelgänger, a drug-crazed diva with deadly desires.

   Note also 30 stuntmen were employed, more bodies than in the big cast. Thus the 3X Bio & PhysioReality.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    N*g*a gets dropped, a lot, like a whole lot, like it’s a plot device, which it is. Can we get past that now?

    The Key and Peele show creative crew created Keanu.

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

    Peter Atencio directed most of the shows and this feature film.

12. Play Really Great 4.5

    Jordan Peele & Alex Rubens wrote the screenplay, after working together on the show. Interestingly, Keegan-Michael Key gets no writing credit.

13. Music Really Great 4.5

14. Visuals Really Great 4.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 3.5

    Macho shit takes peer pressure to its illogical extreme, one bad-follower move after another.

17. Sex Erotic 2.6

18. Violence Savage 3.7

19. Rudeness Nasty 4.2

21. Reality

    Surreal 3.0

    Surreal CircoReality weighs down the mildly Supernatural Physio and Bio realities for an overall 3.0.

    Suspension of Disbelief aside, Key & Peele load up their movie with actual African-American reality.

    • Bragging about who got their ass kicked more & by whom, whupping being essential to manhood
    • Context switching between tough-ass street talk and non-macho post-modern talk
    • Etc., mutha fucka!

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.7

23. Biological Supernatural 3.1

24. Physical Supernatural 3.1