John Wick Or Neo? Looper Survey Reveals Keanu Reeves' Best Action Role
Keanu Reeves. What a legend, right? The seemingly immortal movie icon is one of the few among Hollywood's greats who looks like the kind of person who would help you move or about whom all the other guests speak kindly at your wedding. And yet the seasoned star who exploded in the early '90s and reignited in the '00s has, as many films would attest, the capability to pulverize any poor soul who decides to be a bad guy opposite him on-screen.
Nevertheless, it's what Reeves has made a career out of — and a beloved one at that. Under his belt, covered in gun holsters, is a collection of action-packed installments with his name at the top of the poster, most of which are bonafide bangers. Which among Reeve's catalog of characters he's brought to life towers above them all? Which left audiences saying "woah" as much as he did before a perfectly preserved can of pain was cracked open by the hero of the piece?
Well, thankfully, it's riot-sparking debates like this that we're happy to settle the old-fashioned way. No, not the kind that involves splitting a dojo into pieces or someone on the receiving end of a pencil. Instead, Looper conducted a survey of 616 people around the country and asked them what they think is Keanu Reeves' best action role — and incredibly, it's not the one you think.
Fans think no role can hold a candle to John Wick
Trailing with a bandwidth to match its massively outdated tech is Johnny Mnemonic, with a mere 3.57%, confirming that Keanu Reeves as a human hard drive meeting with Ice-T as J-Bone and a cybernetically enhanced dolphin didn't hold up like the rest. Wiping out ever so slightly behind him, though, is one of Reeves' breakout roles: Johnny Utah in "Point Break," with 12.82%.
Etching ahead but not quite gaining the "speed" some would hope for at 15.58% is Jack Traven, the hotshot doing a pop quiz on a bus ready to blow. Of course, all that's left are the obvious choices, making the winner a much closer call. At 30.68%, the savior of the human race who loves flowy coats, Neo in "The Matrix," drew in the numbers as expected, but Mr. John Wick claimed the title of Reeves' best action role, with 37.34% of the votes. Finally, the question that has plagued humankind for decades has now been settled — that is, if we're not considering the most important opinion on the matter: that of Keanu Reeves himself.
Keanu Reeves prefers Neo over John Wick
No matter the roles Keanu Reeves has played over the years, it was guaranteed that Neo and John Wick would be the top two contenders as fans' action film character favorites. Both have reached franchise-level status and become beloved heroes in their own right. When it comes to the man behind both legendary roles, however, it seems that Reeves goes against the crowd in his preferred protagonist.
When asked on "Red Table Talk" whether he'd prefer to be Mr. Anderson or Mr. Wick Reeves, the stoic titan of the silver screen took his time before giving his final answer. "Lots of ways to go at that," he said before eventually choosing his bullet-dodging dude from "The Matrix," factoring in whether or not the other fictional character would take offense. "I don't think John Wick would mind. I think he'd understand. But to be able to be with Trinity and have that life with them together and see what would happen, I think John Wick would be like, 'I got your back,'" he concluded. Does this affect the results? Not at all. Does it verify that, no matter what reality, any form of Keanu Reeves is just an all-around good guy in the end? To quote the Baba Yaga himself, "... yeah."