Canadian darling Keanu Reeves is well-known as one of the nicest men in Hollywood, with a glittering career to boot! We’ve seen everything over the years, from action Keanu to romantic Keanu (and who could forget Sad Keanu?). To celebrate the brand new 4K restoration of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, we’re taking a look back at some of Keanu’s most excellent roles over the years...
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)
Party on dudes! Keanu stars as the titular Ted, a bodacious San Dimas dude who along with his best friend Bill S. Preston Esq. (Alex Winter) rock as the WYLD STALLYNS, but are lagging behind in history class. It’s not just their grade on the line though, because in 2688 the world only exists as a utopian society due to the inspiration and philosophy of The Two Great Ones, Bill and Ted themselves, and if they don’t pass their history test back in the twentieth century, Ted will be shipped off to military academy and their band will never make it, changing the course of history forever!
Enter Rufus, a citizen from the future who gets the duo a time machine shaped like a phone booth so they can go back in time, revisiting historical figures and get all the info they need to ace their history presentation and save the world.
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure has been resplendently restored, and is available in most excellent 4K from 10th August 2020.
Speed (1994)
A high-octane thriller about a bomb-rigged LA city bus – sound ridiculous? It may well be, but 1994 film Speed was a huge hit, grossing over $350 million and winning two Academy Awards. Reeves stars as LAPD SWAT bomb defusal officer Jack Traven who, after witnessing a bus explode in the city finds out that a second bus has been rigged by a bomber with a device that will arm itself once the bus hits 50 miles per hour, then explode if it goes any slower than that. Jack boards the bus to race through the city until he can figure out how to defuse the bomb. Stakes get even higher when the bus reaches an unfinished freeway and a 20-foot gap it needs to clear to make it to the other side, making us pretty thankful for our boring commutes to work, really! Keanu didn’t board (ahem) the critically-panned sequel, Speed 2: Cruise Control, which was released three years later.
The Matrix (1999)
The iconic 1999 sci-fi thriller that spawned a trend for tiny sunglasses and floor-length leather coats, The Matrix sees Keanu starring alongside Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving and Joe Pantoliano in a dystopian future in which the world is trapped inside a simulated reality. Reeves’ character Neo is presented with a choice: take the red pill and confront the truth and try to stop the machines that are controlling humanity, or the blue pill to remain living a life of blissful ignorance. Neo pops the red pill and the action starts, with the group working to defeat the machines, believing Neo is “the One” especially powerful human prophesied to free humanity.
Toy Story 4 (2019)
Woody and the gang got back together for a fourth adventure in 2019, nine years after the last Toy Story instalment, and were joined by a bunch of new toys this time around. Handsome, charming and moustachioed, Keanu voices Duke Caboom, a 1970s toy and Canada’s greatest daredevil and stuntman (never mind the fact that Duke has never actually been able to do the stunts advertised in his own toy commercial…), who joins the toys on a mission to reunite their owner with her beloved toy Forky, a runaway spork who just wants to be trash. Director Josh Cooley has described how excited Reeves got about his character before filming, jumping up on the table during lunch doing Caboom-style poses to show how he thought his character would behave.
Always Be My Maybe (2019)
Internet boyfriend Keanu Reeves starring as perfect boyfriend Keanu Reeves. Meta? Maybe. Perfect? Absolutely. The 2019 Netflix romcom sees Sasha (Ali Wong) and Marcus (Randall Park) as childhood friends who haven’t spoken since an awkward teenage kiss ended badly. 16 years later, Sasha seems to have it all, and returns to San Francisco with a glittering career as a celebrity chef, hooking up with movie star Keanu Reeves after her engagement ends. Marcus? Not so much. The pair reconnect when Marcus comes to Sasha’s house by chance to fix her air conditioning and the two arrange a disastrous double date, which ends in a brawl between Marcus and Keanu. Reeves loses out as true love finds its way between Sasha and Marcus, but between seeing Keanu in those glasses and hearing him utter the words “the only stars that matter are the ones you look at when you dream,” we’re all winners here.
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure releases on 4K Ultra HD, Steelbook, Blu-ray, DVD and Digital Download on August 10th, 2020.
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