Keegan Michael Key – Movie Smack Talk

First off, I’ll admit the name threw me. I mean, there’s literally only one thing you associate with Keanu, and that’s Keanu Reeves. But let’s make this clear. He’s not in this movie. However, the cat which this movie is focused around a is named Keanu, with a wink at Reeve’s prior pet revenge film John Wick.

The premise is a unique one. Two bumbling guys pose as bad assed drug dealers in order to save an adorable kitten that seems to leave tragedy in its wake. Despite the ridiculous premise, it’s actually buyable because the leads are that charming and the cat is ridiculous cute. Add gold chains and a dew rag to ridiculous cute, and you have a kitten, that even the hardest core thug will fall in love with.

This is weird for me to say, because in theory, this movie should be everything I hate. Not only do I hate cats, I never particularly liked Key & Peele. They’re a real hit or miss for me, but this feels like one of their sketches that was a complete hit, because these guys had me laughing throughout.

It’s been a long time since this has happened to me with a comedy. I consider myself comedy desensitized because I see so many movies. As a result, I can understand when something is humorous in a pragmatic way, without actually laughing. Yeah, I know I’m a real bucket of laughs to go to the movies with. But rarely is something so funny that it catches me by surprise and makes me really laugh. Generally, if that happens once in a movie, I call that movie good.

I lost count of how many times Keanu made me do that. Maybe it’s the adorable premise (you haven’t felt heartwarming until you see a lot of really scary guys fighting over a really cute cat), or the way Key and Peele play off each other, but the entire thing is endearing and hilarious at the same time.

Another thing to note is the excellent and understated cameos. Anna Farris pokes fun at herself as a katana wielding drug addict. Method Man also does a good job of playing tough yet vulnerable bad guy Cheddar.

But it’s the two stars who own the show. They don’t develop as characters. Instead, they’re genuinely nice from the beginning and never turn to the ‘nice guy goes bad’ cliché in the end. It’s a refreshing change of pace for a fish out of water comedy like this.

Of course, it’s not for the easily offended, but I will say this. These guys never make a joke for the sake of being offensive; instead, they try stay pretty true to life, stereotypes and all. Well, as true to life as a crazy story like this could get.

Keanu is coming in at a respectable 3^rd at the box office, holding its own against big budget blockbusters The Jungle Book and The Huntsman; Winter’s War. The movie has earned its spot at the top, and is easily a great choice if you’re looking to laugh.

WE GIVE IT: 4.5 STARS!

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The Griswold family was a staple of my childhood. Watching Chevy Chase as everyman Clark Griswold, as he took his family on European vacations, family vacations, Christmas vacations and even a Vegas vacation was one of my first exposures to comedy. So I was thrilled when they decided to revamp the series, focusing on Clark’s now adult son Rusty. I was so excited. I was excited like that time I got flowers at work on Valentine’s Day.

And much like that time, it ended in disappointment. Just like those flowers, this movie was not for me.

Rusty Griswold (Ed Helms) is a married father of two, who is planning a family trip from Chicago to California’s Walley World for Memorial Day Weekend. His goal is to fix the first vacation from the original family vacation movie, where they wound up at Wally World only to learn it was closed. They break the fourth wall early on for skeptical audiences.

“You want to redo your vacation?” asks wife Debbie (Christina Applegate). “My vacation had a boy and a girl,” Rusty retorts. “This one has two boys. And I’m sure there will be plenty of other differences.” That was cute, but then they just wouldn’t stop! “I’ve never heard of the original vacation,” says Rusty’s son James (Skyler Gisondo). “It doesn’t matter,” insists Dad. “The new vacation will stand on its own.”

We get it, ok. Let it go. Breaking the fourth wall requires surgeon like precision, not bashing us over the head with it over and over again.

Of course, the road trip is filled with peril and calamity. That’s where the similarities end, because this time, the laugh out loud moments are gone, replaced with fist fights and curse words. When someone isn’t swearing or fighting, it’s just dead air, like the movie was directed by a poorly maintained radio station.

Rusty Griswold never had a good vacation, not even once. The filmmakers could have seized on this as the overwhelming theme of the movie. Instead, they insisted on referencing the old movie to bring back shades of nostalgia to an audience who knew and loved the originals.

The problem is this movie is nothing like the originals. Not even the poorly done Vegas vacation, which was a shameless cash grab. That’s right, this movie doesn’t even compare to the worst of the franchise. I felt like they wrote a basic outline of the script, and then told the actors to improv. The problem was that Ed Helms is the only one who knows anything about improv and even he didn’t bring it in this movie.

If you want to revel in nostalgia, I highly recommend watching the other family vacation movies. Those actually provided the ability to laugh, even at incredibly inappropriate times (like the whole dog getting leashed to the rear bumper and forgotten). Chevy Chase made Clark Griswold both likeable and annoying in one fell swoop. I thought Ed Helms would be able to do the same for Rusty, but honestly, it was an outright fail.

WE GAVE IT: 2 Stars – Watch the Official Trailer and Official Movie Poster below!