In theory, there’s nothing wrong with a movie that’s a collection of sketches—plenty of great ones are. But of all the sketches collected in Key and Peele’s Keanu (which I saw in “in-progress” form at SXSW, though that descriptor seems merely a loophole to allow a public screening before the official premiere), there are none so memorable as the concept itself. To force a bad cat metaphor, Keanu feels like a ball of yarn that Key and Peele were content to just keep batting in the air without unraveling.
Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele (it’d be so much easier to remember who was who if the bald comedian was named “Peele”) are so good at making almost anything funny, that Keanu feels like they maybe just never finished writing it. The plot concerns Peele’s kitten, who gets stolen; the duo’s subsequent search takes them to meet the local crime boss, Cheddar, played by Method Man, who works out of a strip club named HPV (as STD puns go, this one is… ehhh). There’s a case of mistaken identity, and a question of just how far Key and Peele will go to get back a kitty…