Keanu Reeves is one of the biggest (and best) names in the acting world. He’s best known for his work in the action realm and, in all honesty, that’s probably where he is best suited. What follows here is my ranking, from worst to best, of his chemistry with his co-stars over the years.
The Kids in Knock Knock
There’s an age-old Hollywood saying about never working with children, and sadly, on this occasion, Keanu didn’t listen to it. Typically this saying relates to children being difficult to work with given their shorter availability schedules and their short attention spans. However, in Knock Knock it simply boils down to a lack of chemistry between Keanu and the sprogs. At no point do you really believe that they’re a family unit. The film starts with a bit about Keanu’s Evan being a cake monster and chasing the kids around the house. It should be cute and endearing, but it’s way more cringe. Trust me, you’ll just be sat there screaming, “stop Keanu, just stop!”
Ana De Armas and Lorenza Izzo in Knock Knock
We stay with Knock Knock for our next entry. The film is based around two sexy sirens – Armas and Izzo – who like to play a game where they turn up at a random man’s house to try and seduce him. Once seduction is complete, they set about punishing the cheating man by essentially ruining his life. Keanu’s Evan is their latest victim, and after a series of ‘surely you wouldn’t really do that’ moments, Evan ends-up in bed with the pair. Now a menage-a-trios between Reeves and two young beautiful women should sizzle, but alas there’s barely a spark between them. Keanu is completely wooden (and not in the way his character is needed to be) with both actors and the scene lacking in sexiness, and so becomes inappropriately funny.
Ana Ularu in Siberia
Image courtesy of Fetch Publicity
Siberia arrives in selected UK cinemas, as well as on digital platforms, on Friday 16th November. What starts out as a diamond trade gone awry thriller, quickly tries to morph itself into more of an erotic thriller. Here, Keanu plays high-powered diamond dealer Lucas Hill; his love interest is young Russian woman Katya (Ana Ularu). Their whole relationship is devoid of chemistry, partly due to the nature of their relationship – there is no build-up, flirting or romance. Katya literally says – ‘people will think we had sex so we should just do it.’ The other failure comes from the countless sex scenes. There are easily some of the least sensual and thrilling love scenes in movie history. The pair are beyond-awkward together, and Keanu doesn’t quite seem to know what he’s doing. Granted his on-screen career hasn’t given him ample practice at this sort of scene, he’s much more at home shooting people in the head, but what is on display here is an embarrassing mess.
Winona Ryder in Dracula, A Scanner Darkly, and Destination Wedding
Keanu and Winona have appeared together on three separate occasions and have always been romantically linked. Their first outing was in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula where Keanu’s Jonathan Harker lost Winona’s Mina Murray to the Prince of Darkness. Next-up, they were lovers in sci-fi head-scratcher A Scanner Darkly where their characters were both ‘off of their heads’ constantly, meaning no real love could bloom. Most recently, they paired-up for wedding-set rom-com Destination Wedding. The problem with this on-screen partnership is that, despite being romantically entangled every time they work together, you never feel the love. Rather, the duo have much more of a friendly vibe. This clearly comes from Reeve and Ryder having known each other for years, but it’s not what you want to see on-screen when their characters are meant to be hot for one another.
Lori Petty in Point Break
Released just after Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Point Break became an instant Keanu Classic. In it he plays new FBI Agent Johnny Utah who goes undercover within the surfing community to track down a group of bank robbers known as The Ex-Presidents. Looking for an in, Johnny recruits Tyler (Lori Petty), a local waitress with a passion for surfing, to teach him the way of the waves. As the pair get closer, Johnny starts to fall for Tyler and they embark on a relationship, all the while with her being in the dark about his real job. Shortly after his lie is exposed, she is kidnapped and Johnny does everything he can to get the woman he loves back, but his heart never really feels in it. As much as the relationship between Tyler and Johnny is meant to be the dominant romantic arc it isn’t. That accolade belongs to Bodhi (more on him later), and try as she might, Petty/Tyler never stands a chance.
Sandra Bullock in Speed and The Lake House
Another repeat Keanu co-star is Sandra Bullock. The pair first met on the set of Speed, and later reunited for time-travelling rom-com The Lake House. Their first outing was entertaining, the casual banter and flirting between Reeves’ Jack and Bullock’s Annie was endearing and engaging. This slow burn build-up reached fever pitch at the end of the movie as they give into their desires. Their passionate embrace goes against Annie’s comments about relationships that start from a high-pressured situation never working out. Her remark is proved to be prophetic as by Speed 2: Cruise Control, Annie is with someone else. Folks were rightly disappointed by the lack of reunion, and were then very happy when The Lake House was announced. This excitement was short-lived however, as even by rom-com standards, The Lake House is a wet and dreary affair lacking romance and chemistry within the entire cast. It might very well have you in tears, but not for the usual rom-com reasons.
Carrie-Ann Moss in The Matrix Trilogy
In The Matrix trilogy, Neo and Trinity are a duo destined to be together, if you believe the Oracle that is. Carrie-Ann Moss is one of Keanu’s better on-screen pairings…at least for the first film. The Matrix is packed full of longing looks and palpable chemistry which all come to a crescendo with that ‘so get up!’ speech at the end. Sadly, by the second and third films, this magic has bee lost. The sexual magnetism between them from The Matrix had vanished and their coupling takes on a more friendly air. Worse still, their hotly anticipated ‘sex’ scene is wrapped around that horrible Zion dancing mess. If I’m completely honest, the only reason that Carrie-Ann Moss features this highly is because of all of that bondage gear the pair wear.
Charlize Theron in The Devil’s Advocate and Sweet November
Charlize Theron is yet another female to star in multiple projects with Keanu, which surely means that he must be a lot of fun to collaborate with. At the beginning of their first acting project, The Devil’s Advocate, their characters can’t keep their hands off of one another, and for once it doesn’t come off as awkward. They have a sex scene together which is pretty passionate, although Keanu’s character Kevin Lomax is fantasising about another woman at the time. This transforms the scene into an unexpected threesome, but unlike in Knock Knock, they pull it off. Their next on-screen outing was rom-com Sweet November, a rare rom-com hit (although not at the box office) for Reeves. In it he plays Nelson Moss, a high-powered ad exec who finds himself romantically entangled with Theron’s free-spirited Sara. The catch is, Sara only dates men for the duration of one month, but as the pair grow closer, Nelson is determined to make it to December. The relationship in Sweet November is, as the title suggests, sweeter, but the chemistry is still present, if not somewhat muted. Outside of their film projects, Keanu helped Charlize get into shape for Atomic Blonde, meaning we’re now all waiting for a crossover between Lorraine Broughton and John Wick.
Daisy the Dog in John Wick
Whilst Keanu might have had little chemistry with his pretend kids in Knock Knock, he did manage to connect with his on-screen dog Daisy in John Wick. They are only together for a very brief amount of scenes before tragedy strikes, but the bond is undoubtable. Maybe it’s that they both wear the same hound-dog expression and have
the same brown puppy dog eyes; either way, the audience instantly warm to the duo. Upon Daisy’s demise, you completely feel John’s anguish and are fully on-board with his murdering an astonishing amount of Russian cartel members. Daisy needed to be avenged!
Ian McShane in John Wick 1 & 2
Daisy the Dog isn’t the only John Wick cast member that Reeves has a special connection with as anyone who has witnessed his interactions with Ian McShane’s Winston will know. The pair has a very interesting and intense way of communicating wherein they look deeply into each other’s eye before calling each other by their full Christian name. To everyone else, John is John Wick, but to Winston he’s Jonathan, and boy does he like saying the name. He says it with such tenderness it’s almost a pet name. Saying the name of the one you desire repeatedly to them is one of the oldest flirting techniques in the book. As if that wasn’t evidenced enough of feelings bubbling under the surface, Winston repeatedly grants John special treatment. He tells him where Iosef is hiding and grants him a head-start upon his excommunication at the end of John Wick: Chapter 2. He certainly wasn’t that nice to the other rule-breaker – Ms. Perkins. Come on guys, with Winston owning The Continental, you’d think they’d be able to find a room.
Alex Winter in the Bill & Ted Movies
It’s debatable as to whether Keanu would be where he is today without his first real on-screen partner Alex Winter. Winter played the marginally smarter Bill S. Preston Esq. to Reeves’ airhead rocker Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan across two Bill & Ted movies. The pair have an easy repore that infects the viewer surreptitiously, turning them into an unwitting Wyld Stallyns groupie. There’s a real connection between them, one that’s much stronger than their love of music and their girlfriends. It’s an innocent love, but one that has stood the test of time. Reeves and Winter are still close friends, and are vehemently working on a third Bill & Ted adventure together, something audiences have been screaming for for years.
Laurence Fishburne in The Matrix Films and John Wick: Chapter Two
Now, we know that many believe that it’s Neo and Trinity that belong together in The Matrix, but if you think about it, it’s really all about Neo and Morpheus. Morpheus has spent his entire life searching for ‘the one’, aka Neo, and goes to some pretty drastic extremes to keep him alive. Towards the end of the The Matrix, Morpheus sacrifices himself to the Agents so that Neo can be safe. Later, Neo embarks on an insane rescue mission, one that on paper ends only in death. If all this risking their lives for one another isn’t proof of their undying devotion to one another, I don’t know what is. Before these big declarations of love, they have countless sparring simulations which many could read as foreplay. Their relationship was so beloved that the casting of Fishburne in John Wick: Chapter Two sent many into a frenzy, with audiences desperate to see them back together again.
Patrick Swayze in Point Break
Towards the start of Point Break, around the time when Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) and Johnny first meet via Tyler, Bodhi makes a comment that makes it clear he and Tyler have a romantic history. You’d be forgiven then for thinking that director Kathryn Bigelow is setting up a love triangle in which Johnny and Bodhi are vying for Tyler. In reality, Bigelow is actually setting up a triangle wherein it is Bodhi and Tyler fighting for Johnny’s adoration. Unfortunately for Tyler, she never stands a chance against the raw masculine charisma of Bodhi. Johnny is drawn to Bodhi like a moth to a flame, and despite being tasked with apprehending Bodhi, he let’s him slip through his fingers several times. The most iconic of these moments is post-chase when Johnny, a deft shot, has Bodhi in his gun-sight, but rather than shoot Bodhi he instead shoots his (gun) load off into the sky. Pure pent-up sexual tension on display in that scene folks.
Bodhi seems all too aware of Johnny’s feelings, and uses them to his advantage – how else does he sweet-talk him into letting him go at the end? He even let’s Johnny know he knows when he utters the line, ‘I know you want me so bad, it’s like acid in your mouth’. Their entire dynamic is based around 100% pure adrenaline, making this relationship more of a lustful fling than anything that would stand the test of time. The homo-eroticism on display in Point Break is the stuff of legend. Through the years, Johnny and Bodhi’s forbidden bromance has inspired many others – Dom and Brian anyone?
River Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho
Directed by Gus Van Sant, My Own Private Idadho might not be one of Keanu’s most famous films, but it is however one of his greatest. In it he plays rich-boy-turned-runaway-rent-boy Scott Favor, the lust object of protagonist Mike Waters’ (River Phoenix) affections. The pair bond early-on, Favor assuming an Artful Dodger type persona to Mike’s Oliver Twist. Our duo are pretty much polar opposites, Scott is cock-sure, confident and very in touch with his sensuality, whilst Mike is shy, withdrawn and a little awkward. It makes sense then that Mike would be drawn to Scott, and his unprofessed feelings towards his straight (unless you’re paying) colleague adds an extra layer of pathos to My Own Private Idaho.
Unrequited love is always difficult to watch, but here it’s downright devastating. All of this angst eventually boils-over and the pair end-up in bed together (along with Udo Kier) and everything feels perfect. Keanu has never been sexier than in this film, and his dynamic with Phoenix surely contributes to that. In real-life, Reeves and Phoenix were really close friends, and that connection translates beautifully on-screen. Their ease and comfortability with one another allows them to push things further than they might have with other actors. The heat and intimacy between them is electric, with something as simple as Scott twirling Mike’s nipple post-coitus becoming hugely erotic. It’s a close fight between Swayze and Phoenix for Keanu’s best co-star, but this spiritual connection sees Phoenix just edge Swayze out.
Catch Keanu in Siberia when it releases on Digital VOD Platforms, and in Cinemas, on Friday 16th November.
