Keanu Reeves bad acting?

[dankogrg]

Is it just me or is Keanu Reeves performance in the game pretty meh? He is dispasionate and delivers all the lines with same monotone voice. He really highly contrasts from all the other actors, especially the main character, who brings it al on beliveable and puts completely himself into the role. Did Keanu just phone in his role?

[Cellmember]

Първоначално публикувано от dankogrg:

I think V's perormance was good, at least better than Keanu. He put in convincing emotion

Agreed, Keanu sounds the same in everything he's in.

[Weaver]

Keanu acted exactly like he has in every role ever. He's never been a stunning actor, hence why his best roles never call for much depth and nuance.

The only really bad performance was male V. It's not only a ham-fisted performance, it's completely unsuitable for anything but 'dumb street thug' V. They should of gone with an experienced voice actor, and it's one of many things that make it feel like female V was the intended V.

[Okihara Jones]

Първоначално публикувано от Weaver:

The only really bad performance was male V. It's not only a ham-fisted performance, it's completely unsuitable for anything but 'dumb street thug' V.

Going to have to 100% agree with this

Първоначално публикувано от Weaver:

it's one of many things that make it feel like female V was the intended V.

1000% agree: for me, female V is the canon V. The only reason to play Male V is to have Beautiful Sexy Timez with (no spoilers but you know damn well who).

[my dude]

Something tells me you haven't seen a Keanu Reeves movie before. That is the ONLY way he acts, from the Matrix all the way to Johnathon Wickermeister, his operformances have always been monotone and flat.

[EJR]

I agree that it's monotone, but I think that is the type of character they were trying to nail with Johnny Silverhand. And if that is the case, he did pretty well. On the Cyberpunk wiki, and the flashbacks in-game, it shows that he is a rebellious but angsty rockerboy who wanted to "wake the world up" from extreme corporate occupation/consumption.

But I do agree with the point that was brought up by many people already, in that Keanu was simply voice acting as he was in his films. The Matrix was one of my films growing up and even I found him to be too monotone.

[Vin]

imo, tooo monotone for a character that was a rockstar. it just doesnt fit.

[TwinChops]

Първоначално публикувано от Okihara Jones:

Първоначално публикувано от Weaver:

The only really bad performance was male V. It's not only a ham-fisted performance, it's completely unsuitable for anything but 'dumb street thug' V.

Going to have to 100% agree with this

Първоначално публикувано от Weaver:

it's one of many things that make it feel like female V was the intended V.

1000% agree: for me, female V is the canon V. The only reason to play Male V is to have Beautiful Sexy Timez with (no spoilers but you know damn well who).

In the German version the VA of Male V starts of really good but then drops down pretty fast, while the VA of the Female V starts of low but is miles better after like the first two missions.
And the German VA of Keanu allways did a good job lol

[The guy from Ace Attorney]

I liked Keanu in this game, didn't think it was stellar acting and yeah a bit flat, but idk where V being any better comes from lol. I played with the "Masculine" voice and Male V sounds like a rejected Commander Shepard putting on a "gangsta" accent, and delivering nearly every line exactly the same until it's time to say the F word.

[Northwold]

Just to change the record re male V, I think male V's performance is superb for a guy who is trying to tough it out but is lost and more sensitive than he wants to let on. Not that it's a competition, but I very much prefer it to female V. She's also excellent most of the time, but goes to full-blown anger in ways that feel wrong for the lines.

Honestly, the only person whose acting I felt was really sub par was Grimes. But her acting was beyond sub par into truly atrocious to the point I almost couldn't bring myself to do the second part of her quest. Like truly, immersion breakingly, unbearably AWFUL.

[Okihara Jones]

Male V sounds like a dimestore day-player gangster extra from a Paul Henried b-picture, the slow-witted wingman of the boss from a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

"Alright boys, we'll show em the what-for, see? We do it MY way, see? Or it's COITINS for ya, see?"

[digital_lovee]

female v voice actor > male v voice actor

[Njorl]

I think he nails it.
Think about celebrity activists. They usually are not convincing. They usually seem like phonies even if they're not. Johnny Silverhand is always putting on a performance for the consumption of others and it shows, as it should.

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

Първоначално публикувано от Okihara Jones:

Първоначално публикувано от Mr_Blank:

I think V took the show, his and her voice actor did an amazing job. I wouldn’t say keannu was bad though, I really enjoyed his performance.

Respectfully disagree. For me, male AND female V voices are awful: fake tough guy gangster inflections and cadences (especially male V) more fitting for a prohibition-era mafia game.

Keanu's rockerboy totally sells the character, love him.

I disagree about V, it works perfectly for me which is very rare for a voiced protagonist to work who also shows passion, this is tough to do because the emotional states break immersion when discordant with yours, this is why everyone from Adam Jensen to Geralt of Rivia have their monotone voices, it's because voiced first person characters are extremely hard to do with emotion without annoying the player.

As for Keanu yeah I noticed that, but I just found it really painfully believable as a tired old washed out former celebrity who's now just tired and jaded and ended up becoming a drugged up terrorist, he plays the dispassionate egotistical ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ so cooly and so well you quickly forget it's not "bad" acting and just believably who Johnny is, this cynical, narcissistic prick. I'd imagine giving his profession and where he lives, Keanu is perfectly reflecting the kinds of people he's had to deal with daily, washed up, narcissistic egotists on a crazed cocaine binge, loved by people despite themselves being complete and total ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ like a fair share of musicians especially. I mean rockstars really are just not good people, I have no idea why people idolize them as much. At least Johnny SIlverhand was also a politically active terrorist, so there's that. Kinda says something more about his character than "I do cocaine and have sex with groupies all day in between singing out of tune." Like Manson, basically. God. Rob Zombie was right to be pissed with Manson for ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up that set. Actually come to think of it yeah, he is like Manson! That's who it is, Johnny Silverhand has a similar cadence to late stage Marilyn Manson, like the era he became so full of himself and ran out of artistic statements to make and became more into self worship, though I guess Manson also was pretty dead and monotone sounded anyway.

tl;dr Johnny's cadence and pacing works really well for someone who is literally strung out all the time and just a jaded a-hole. It's downright uncomfortable for me sometimes playing him in those flashbacks, to my partying days before I quit smoking and alcohol, Johnny is like the worst part of us from our youths we worked our asses off to get rid of and kill him off inside us, so I find the whole premise pretty nice, I can clearly see what CDPR was going for as a series of meta commentaries and they pulled it off better with this game than anything else they ever worked on; Johnny Silverhand is basically the old man of Christianity you must kill off, he's the sort of id and the Beast of VTMB, the unpleasant, darker Tyler Durden parts of ourselves that only feels stronger and more motivated but really is just weaker and more unapologetically self indulgent, the game is plainly a psychodrama

Първоначално публикувано от Toaster Maximus:

Think its meant to be an uneven thing,, the mind on the chip is not stable its clear silveerhand had some mental health issues and likely ptsd to boot among many other things find the wild swings he sometimes takes fits with the damage he has gone through from very little emotion to overly intense reactions fits with a lot of things.

Think all things considered its well done given what he is playing and it being on a damaged chip to boot.

He is also strung out like, all the time. I found this much easier and maybe harder to roleplay in the sense that my V was a streetkid, and so there's no real distinct line for me and Johnny like where in other games I'd maybe feel myself start becoming him more and more, because I took Streetkid path they're already pretty similar characters, I mean I ended up doing Black Lace with Maelstrom gangsters just because that's what my character would've done. I didn't do it in a "this is like smoking PCP in Training Day" kind of a way, I decided that's exactly the kind of thing my ganger street thief's character would do. And so I wasn't even sure where to draw the line with smoking, opposed to a corpo who I'd have not smoking period, it made sense to me this street dude was going to be all "hell yeah I'd take a drink." I don't even drink with my Geralt as much. So it's just makes for an odd character.

Really I think it's the most interesting part about videogames, is basically, well yeah I guess it is kind of acting in a sense, it's making yourself someone else, actively roleplaying and figuring out how another person thinks and experiences their life, and trying to retract that distance between self and screen. It's the only reason I really liked FNV, was it followed naturally starting with a naive character who'd actively avoid conflict with raiders and trying to not shoot anybody, to being this hardened, grizzled wastelander who cold heartedly shot people first and asked questions later. Not a lot of games can pull this off well, I think the KOTOR series being one of the few other examples where you basically can start acting darksided without even thinking about it, until you become that guy.

See this is the thing I wish more games would explore more, nobody just goes to sleep and wakes up the next day deciding "I'm going to be a terrorist today" no one just wakes up one day and decides to be a heroin addict, it's a gradual, insidious kind of a thing. The best media explore this, where drip by drip the darkside infiltrates you, until you find yourself stabbing people with a lightsaber and you don't even know why you do it anymore. I saw a really poignant video by this guy describing the process of how he went from a normal construction working guy to being a homeless heroin addict, and how "it sneaks up on you." I guess if you do heroin, you're fine some day, it's not like a flipped switch where you're just automatically a junkie, maybe some people know the first time they try it where they're heading but really it's a gradual process. Being addicted to alcohol is kind of the same way, you don't just wake up and decide to be a crippled drunk, you just keep telling yourself these lies after it started with going out with friends on the weekend, or just to get your courage up or "to keep the cold out" and you sorta don't realize even as it's happening how far gone you've become. I strongly suspect it's that way with terrorists too. I didn't get to see all of Johnny's life and his relationship to his mother or whatever crap, I just get to see how this guy is constantly being a jaded, self satisfied, strung out ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ all the time who's invading my body and trying to kick me out to steal my own body from me. Like imagine some crack addict shows up in your bedroom and says this my place now.

But you get to see these snippets of memories, I think really what CDPR could've done is maybe spent slightly more time showing the emotionally conflicted side of Johnny Silverhand, and while I think the wake for Jackie was a bit overplayed as I didn't get to know him that well, it really worked well for when spoilers Evelyn died and frankly I question who the writers were they got eerily uncomfortably close to accurate in some things, to where just playing V can be this out of body experience. I think the two characters become more close to one another, as I been trying a more pacifist run and so it's becoming a nonstop fight against the urge to just start killing these people and probably by now I would've gone homicidal were it not the fact my netrunning build can clear a whole building without killing anybody and so I'd literally need to doubletap every unconscious body to be more like Johnny. Which I only did a couple of times with scavengers, because they deserved it. Meanwhile I don't get to see fully my V which is fine, but I'd like to have known more about how Silverhand became who he was, to see a little more depth into himand thank God I'm not like that guy, the stuff with Alt imagine actually waking up one day and being this guy, and you're so strung out on black lace and synthwhiskey your last moment with a lover is some argument before getting killed

Basically Johnny's supposed to be messed up, and tired and jaded and edgy, and I think it ultimately works real well. It's super offputting at first where you wonder what is wrong with Keanu but I think that's basically just because he literally looks and sounds like someone we recognize, otherwise if I didn't know his distinct voice I'd take his voice acting as that of a man who's literally talking to me while he's hungover and trying to figure out who he knows he can hit up for an 8 ball he hasn't alienated yet. Johnny's that kind of guy. I absolutely can see this is a real person, maybe minus the gunfights part.

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

Първоначално публикувано от Njorl:

I think he nails it.
Think about celebrity activists. They usually are not convincing. They usually seem like phonies even if they're not. Johnny Silverhand is always putting on a performance for the consumption of others and it shows, as it should.

Yeah it's partly affected, but I think it's partly a personality thing. Johnny's always trying to be posing. This is true. But the part of him that is not an act is the jaded cynicism and the tiredness. This sounds completely organic to me. He literally sounds hungover and bitter.

Първоначално публикувано от Okihara Jones:

Male V sounds like a dimestore day-player gangster extra from a Paul Henried b-picture, the slow-witted wingman of the boss from a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

"Alright boys, we'll show em the what-for, see? We do it MY way, see? Or it's COITINS for ya, see?"

Dude watch Jay Williams and lockdown21and1 on youtube, or what's the other guy, Larry Lawton that's it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO42mt_wZd4
I mean have you heard these guys think and speak? Hell yeah some of them come off as characters, I think some of you guys played too many videogames and don't know anymore what hilarity real people actually talk and act like, I mean I'm pretty sure if Larry Lawton played a robber you'd be telling me exactly this same thing. V was totally believable for me. At least my streetkid V. That kind of thing where all these characters are clearly able to still be human but there's that internal hesistancy early street people do that have that human feeling and then quickly bury it because they don't want to be taken advantage of, before being older street people who just do that reflexively. How long you been on the streets is how quickly that becomes reflexive, far as I can tell. Or you know Michael Franzese. Yeah the guy kinda sounds like a stereotypical movie mobster that's because not everything is hammy acting, some is just regional or lifestyle etc.

Първоначално публикувано от Vin:

imo, tooo monotone for a character that was a rockstar. it just doesnt fit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeQ4HWhPEdA
I don't know why you guys expect them to talk like they're still on the stage? Plenty of rockstars sound like they just woke up and had half their neurons burned out.

[Okihara Jones]

Първоначално публикувано от Red Star, Blood Moon:

Първоначално публикувано от Okihara Jones:

Respectfully disagree. For me, male AND female V voices are awful: fake tough guy gangster inflections and cadences (especially male V) more fitting for a prohibition-era mafia game.

Keanu's rockerboy totally sells the character, love him.

I disagree about V, it works perfectly for me which is very rare for a voiced protagonist to work who also shows passion, this is tough to do because the emotional states break immersion when discordant with yours, this is why everyone from Adam Jensen to Geralt of Rivia have their monotone voices, it's because voiced first person characters are extremely hard to do with emotion without annoying the player.

As for Keanu yeah I noticed that, but I just found it really painfully believable as a tired old washed out former celebrity who's now just tired and jaded and ended up becoming a drugged up terrorist, he plays the dispassionate egotistical ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ so cooly and so well you quickly forget it's not "bad" acting and just believably who Johnny is, this cynical, narcissistic prick. I'd imagine giving his profession and where he lives, Keanu is perfectly reflecting the kinds of people he's had to deal with daily, washed up, narcissistic egotists on a crazed cocaine binge, loved by people despite themselves being complete and total ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ like a fair share of musicians especially. I mean rockstars really are just not good people, I have no idea why people idolize them as much. At least Johnny SIlverhand was also a politically active terrorist, so there's that. Kinda says something more about his character than "I do cocaine and have sex with groupies all day in between singing out of tune." Like Manson, basically. God. Rob Zombie was right to be pissed with Manson for ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up that set. Actually come to think of it yeah, he is like Manson! That's who it is, Johnny Silverhand has a similar cadence to late stage Marilyn Manson, like the era he became so full of himself and ran out of artistic statements to make and became more into self worship, though I guess Manson also was pretty dead and monotone sounded anyway.

tl;dr Johnny's cadence and pacing works really well for someone who is literally strung out all the time and just a jaded a-hole. It's downright uncomfortable for me sometimes playing him in those flashbacks, to my partying days before I quit smoking and alcohol, Johnny is like the worst part of us from our youths we worked our asses off to get rid of and kill him off inside us, so I find the whole premise pretty nice, I can clearly see what CDPR was going for as a series of meta commentaries and they pulled it off better with this game than anything else they ever worked on; Johnny Silverhand is basically the old man of Christianity you must kill off, he's the sort of id and the Beast of VTMB, the unpleasant, darker Tyler Durden parts of ourselves that only feels stronger and more motivated but really is just weaker and more unapologetically self indulgent, the game is plainly a psychodrama

Първоначално публикувано от Toaster Maximus:

Think its meant to be an uneven thing,, the mind on the chip is not stable its clear silveerhand had some mental health issues and likely ptsd to boot among many other things find the wild swings he sometimes takes fits with the damage he has gone through from very little emotion to overly intense reactions fits with a lot of things.

Think all things considered its well done given what he is playing and it being on a damaged chip to boot.

He is also strung out like, all the time. I found this much easier and maybe harder to roleplay in the sense that my V was a streetkid, and so there's no real distinct line for me and Johnny like where in other games I'd maybe feel myself start becoming him more and more, because I took Streetkid path they're already pretty similar characters, I mean I ended up doing Black Lace with Maelstrom gangsters just because that's what my character would've done. I didn't do it in a "this is like smoking PCP in Training Day" kind of a way, I decided that's exactly the kind of thing my ganger street thief's character would do. And so I wasn't even sure where to draw the line with smoking, opposed to a corpo who I'd have not smoking period, it made sense to me this street dude was going to be all "hell yeah I'd take a drink." I don't even drink with my Geralt as much. So it's just makes for an odd character.

Really I think it's the most interesting part about videogames, is basically, well yeah I guess it is kind of acting in a sense, it's making yourself someone else, actively roleplaying and figuring out how another person thinks and experiences their life, and trying to retract that distance between self and screen. It's the only reason I really liked FNV, was it followed naturally starting with a naive character who'd actively avoid conflict with raiders and trying to not shoot anybody, to being this hardened, grizzled wastelander who cold heartedly shot people first and asked questions later. Not a lot of games can pull this off well, I think the KOTOR series being one of the few other examples where you basically can start acting darksided without even thinking about it, until you become that guy.

See this is the thing I wish more games would explore more, nobody just goes to sleep and wakes up the next day deciding "I'm going to be a terrorist today" no one just wakes up one day and decides to be a heroin addict, it's a gradual, insidious kind of a thing. The best media explore this, where drip by drip the darkside infiltrates you, until you find yourself stabbing people with a lightsaber and you don't even know why you do it anymore. I saw a really poignant video by this guy describing the process of how he went from a normal construction working guy to being a homeless heroin addict, and how "it sneaks up on you." I guess if you do heroin, you're fine some day, it's not like a flipped switch where you're just automatically a junkie, maybe some people know the first time they try it where they're heading but really it's a gradual process. Being addicted to alcohol is kind of the same way, you don't just wake up and decide to be a crippled drunk, you just keep telling yourself these lies after it started with going out with friends on the weekend, or just to get your courage up or "to keep the cold out" and you sorta don't realize even as it's happening how far gone you've become. I strongly suspect it's that way with terrorists too. I didn't get to see all of Johnny's life and his relationship to his mother or whatever crap, I just get to see how this guy is constantly being a jaded, self satisfied, strung out ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ all the time who's invading my body and trying to kick me out to steal my own body from me. Like imagine some crack addict shows up in your bedroom and says this my place now.

But you get to see these snippets of memories, I think really what CDPR could've done is maybe spent slightly more time showing the emotionally conflicted side of Johnny Silverhand, and while I think the wake for Jackie was a bit overplayed as I didn't get to know him that well, it really worked well for when spoilers Evelyn died and frankly I question who the writers were they got eerily uncomfortably close to accurate in some things, to where just playing V can be this out of body experience. I think the two characters become more close to one another, as I been trying a more pacifist run and so it's becoming a nonstop fight against the urge to just start killing these people and probably by now I would've gone homicidal were it not the fact my netrunning build can clear a whole building without killing anybody and so I'd literally need to doubletap every unconscious body to be more like Johnny. Which I only did a couple of times with scavengers, because they deserved it. Meanwhile I don't get to see fully my V which is fine, but I'd like to have known more about how Silverhand became who he was, to see a little more depth into himand thank God I'm not like that guy, the stuff with Alt imagine actually waking up one day and being this guy, and you're so strung out on black lace and synthwhiskey your last moment with a lover is some argument before getting killed

Basically Johnny's supposed to be messed up, and tired and jaded and edgy, and I think it ultimately works real well. It's super offputting at first where you wonder what is wrong with Keanu but I think that's basically just because he literally looks and sounds like someone we recognize, otherwise if I didn't know his distinct voice I'd take his voice acting as that of a man who's literally talking to me while he's hungover and trying to figure out who he knows he can hit up for an 8 ball he hasn't alienated yet. Johnny's that kind of guy. I absolutely can see this is a real person, maybe minus the gunfights part.

My fellow gamer (and choom), I am going to agree with you simply out respect for this passionate post. No joke or punchline here, sir. Gat-dangit, I may not agree with all you say but you are surely are making some good points here.