Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
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I don't understand the half asian thing though, is keanu half asian?
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um, yes. surprised you didn't know, but i guess if you didn't, most of america doesn't either.
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Reeves is 1/4 Asian at best. His mother is white, his dad was born in Hawaii, and is half white, half Portuguese/Chinese/Hawaiian. So only his paternal grandmother has any non-white blood, and she's a mix anyway.
If I were Asian, I wouldn't want to lay claim to him anyway. Hahaha.
But seriously -- I think Reeves gets a bum rap. Sure he sucks when he's trying to act with dialogue... and character and words and stuff. But a lot of acting is physical, especially movie acting (he couldn't get away with this crap on a stage), and Reeves' physical capabilities as an action star have been long underrated.
A bulk of the trilogy's great success is due to his performance as Neo, and much of that is really his look: how he runs up walls, shoots guns, does kung fu, and walks around in cool shades and a black trenchcoat. Not a lot of actors can pull that off (no matter how much more talented Phillip Seymour Hoffman is, he would be a total toolbag as Neo), and Reeves did a great job running up walls. He's equally adept in "Speed," a similarly lousy script that nevertheless benefits from him hanging off a speeding bus and jumping over subway trains. When you watch him do that crap, you just somehow suspend your disbelief. He gets paid a ton, and the studios know why. I think a lot of audience members don't -- or at least don't recognize it.
As for Will Smith, I think he's one of the few huge stars who also can manage that kind of physical acting, but his attitude is all wrong. The Wachowskis, as clever as they are, don't have a very good sense of humor and take their trilogy extremely seriously. Will Smith is too sarcastic to be a serious Neo. Sure he's good in his dramatic roles (I liked him in Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness, etc.) but his smirk is always loaded with a wisecrack waiting to come out.
Men In Black was the right vehicle for Smith. Matrix was the right vehicle for Reeves. That's why all of those movies made a crapload of cash.
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