A Defence For Keanu Reeves as Spike

A while ago there was an attempt at making a live action Cowboy Bebop movie, not a terrible idea people felt, then it was rumoured that Keanu Reeves was to play the lead role of Spike Spiegel and people flipped. Here's the thing...I don't think he's a bad choice...let me explain. Imagine if you will that you've never seen a single Keanu Reeves film, you've never even heard of him, if i were to tell you that he was to play Spike and i showed you a picture of him, your first reaction would probably be something along the lines of "Okay, yeah sure". Because really, he does look like Spike, he has a similar body build, he can pull off the style of suit he wears and he can more than likely mimic his walk, not to mention the guy clearly knows how to do action and stunt work.

For those of you who would then say "Well yeah but we've seen him act, he can barely do his own characters, let alone adaptations of existing ones" and to that i would say...you have a point. Even in his best movie (Point Break) he doesn't give that good of a performance, but here's the thing, i actually think he's gotten better with age, just look at John Wick, a movie about an assassin who gave up his former life for a woman but now lives in a state of limbo ever since the death of the woman he loves, sound familiar? In fact just watch John Wick and tell me you don't at least see shades of Spike in there. Even more so, think about Spike's behaviour, he mostly expresses himself through body language and groans, sure he gets all cocky and high spirited while on a mission but most of the time he's just sat there hungry for his next meal and fretting the next thing that will annoy him.

The biggest complaint against him that I really don't have a defence for is the voice, going from Steve Blum, one of the greatest voice actors of all time to Keanu "Whoa" Reeves. Yeah this is one of those ways how we are going to have to downgrade, after all Blum's performance as Spike is legendary and he is the definitive Spike Spiegel and there's nothing anyone can do to change that. Also there's that little problem of the hair...yeah sorry Spike, you're gonna have to get a haircut in this case.

So in the end, is this a 100% perfect choice for Spike? No, but most of the boxes are checked and honestly they still could make this, and if they did and they announced Keanu Reeves for Spike, i would be all for it and I would hope you would too...as long as you watch John Wick.

-Danny