A PARTICULAR & SUCCESSFUL CAREER (con’t )

END OF THE 90’S : A BUSY ACTOR …

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Keanu in Johnny Mnemonic

In 1994, SPEED brought Keanu Reeves on the top list of the best Hollywood actors performers, and he successfully casts Johnny Mnemonic, a science-fiction action film directed by Robert Longo.  He plays a man with a cybernetic brain able to store information. The film was shot in well known territories for Keanu like Toronto and Montreal, in Canada.

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In A Walk in the Clouds

 

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Keanu Reeves and Cameron Diaz in Feeling Minnesota

A Walk in the Clouds, a romantic drama film , Chain Reaction, an action film, Feeling Minnesota with Cameron Diaz, a romantic comedy, The Last Time / Committed Suicide , and finally the succesful  drama The Devil’s Advocate a thriller with Al Pacino were the movies where Keanu Reeves played the main character.

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In The Devil’s Advocate

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Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves in The Devil’s Advocate

Directed by Taylor Hackford, The Devil’s Advocate is based on the book of Andrew Neiderman, and it is the story of a young attorney from Florida,  Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves) who joins the most powerful Lawyer Firm located in New York City and who discover the strange personality of his boss, John Milton (Al Pacino).

…AND COMES THE MATRIX

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The Matrix

Starting 1994  Andy and Larry, the Wachowski brothers wrote a script for a science-fiction movie inspired by the work of a French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, this was the idea behind The Matrix. Several famous actors were resquested to play the main role of Thomas Anderson / Neo , on the list there was Will Smith, Nicolas Cage, Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp, some turn it down,  finally the studio Warner Bros. pushed Keanu Reeves.

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The Matrix, the cast

The film released in 1999, was a large investment of more than  60 million dollars, as the Wachowskis ask for new visual effect (as the ‘ bullet time’) involving sophisticated cameras and computers. The action scenes were inspired by Japanese Animation and martial arts supervised by Hong Kong cinema specialists. The investment was worth as  the movie had a worldwide success bringing a box-office close to 500 millions.

 

Keanu Reeves as Neo

Keanu Reeves as Neo

Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) is a computer programmer who has a second life as Neo, a hacker. In his computer sessions the cryptic word of Matrix appeared repetitively on his screen. Trinity  (Carrie-Anne Moss) contacts him and bring him to Morpheus ( Laurence Fishburne) who was supposed to explain the meaning of Matrix. Neo was  asked to swallow a red pill and was transported in a new place where humans connected to cables are part of an electrical power system. The system was built by intelligent machines to substitute the solar energy after they were denied access by the humans as a result of a war between them.  Humans are regularly recruited by the inteligent machines to feed the Matrix  and their body’s bio-electricity is collected to generate the requested electrical power.

The Matrix is defended by Agents led by Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving). Morpheus belongs to a group of rebels who fight against the Matrix and “unplug” humans and recruit them to become rebels as well.  Neo is one of them,  in addition Neo showed skill during his virtual combat, for Morpheus this was an indication that Neo could be “TheOne” .
In other words the man prophesied to end the war between the humans and the machines.

 

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