They made their mark during five seasons on Comedy Central’s Key & Peele…
This weekend Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele elevate their persona from cable tv to the movie screen—and pull it off surprisingly well.
In KEANU the duo is cast as middle class cousins in L.A. who impersonate gangsters in order to retrieve their new pet, a small gray kitten named Keanu who stole their hearts.
They pose as drug dealers from Allentown, PA as they now enter L.A.’s underbelly in search of their precious feline.
But Key and Peele are basically dorks, and that’s where the fun lies as we follow these two goofs turn thugs-peak and downright dirty.
Along the way they hit on just about every imaginable cliche and lampoon other genre movies by name while bringing in some surprise actors to help milk the laughs.
It’s basically a major LA gang war caused by—well a little pussy…..
If this wasn’t a Key & Peele sketch then no one would buy into it, but that’s where the film’s trouble lies. These guys have based everything to date ON sketches. And this movie just seems like on of their funny pieces that’s been drawn out into an hour and forty minute-long feature film.
Basically, it’s the same thing that has plagued so many SNL sketch-based movies.
In all fairness I’ll be the first to admit that our screening audience came psyched for just about everything that went down on the screen. And the cameos didn’t hurt either.
So whether you’re a fan of the old Comedy Central cable show or walking into the movie cold—it WILL entertain you in an R-rated kind of way.
The big-screen debut of Key & Peele in KEANU grading out a fan-fun: B-
(Reviewed at Cinemark Palace, Kansas City)
JACK GOES TO THE MOVIES Friday mornings during Kansas City’s Morning News on 98.1 FM, KMBZ
sounds funny as hell
I never saw the show on TV when it was on but am catching up on you tube. But will wait for the movie on demand.