Best Keanu: “Through the mystical fabric of the fourth dimension, you may now view what’s happening at the same time as things are happening to you.”

Best Keanu (honorable mention): “Did I mention you are the worst epic heroes for whom I have ever been a spirit guide?”

If you watch Sponge on the Run, don’t expect to hear the classic SpongeBob Squarepants theme song at any point. I kept waiting for it. I heard it in my head.

But I haven’t seen any SpongeBob in years, so it could be that the classic theme song is just that — classic — and no longer used in the franchise.

In this movie, SpongeBob loses his best friend Gary, who is a cat in every way except that he’s a snail. Gary is kidnapped, and SpongeBob is devastated. He and Patrick set off to rescue him.

Early on, Patrick and SpongeBob encounter Sage, who offers guidance for the journey. Sage is the disembodied head of Keanu Reeves in a tumbleweed made, fittingly enough, out of sage.

There are several other notable actors in this movie. Tiffany Haddish, Reggie Watts, and Awkwafina voice animation. Snoop Dogg and Danny Trejo are live-action. Only Keanu is a disembodied head.

The interesting question for me was, if this were not a SpongeBob movie, would we buy Keanu Reeves as a spirit guide? The easy answer is, “of course,” but I am not sure that’s the right answer.

Keanu seems to fall very easily into the role of seeker. In the 10-minute sequence in the original Matrix where he first meets the Oracle — a truly brilliant stretch of filmmaking — he questions Trinity and Morpheus about who she is. He’s skeptical, but open. When he meets her, he listens. He listens to the spoon boy too, with a kind of curiosity and deep respect.

In this sense, Neo is not just a learner, but a seeker, and Keanu conveyed that perhaps better than any other actor could have. It’s the eyes, but more so, the listening with rapt attention. There are hints of that seeker quality in later roles too — in Constantine, the hero may be less than altruistic, but he, too, is trying to navigate the rules of a cosmic world he doesn’t fully understand. Again, Keanu wore that with seeming complete ease.

Even John Wick, who is (maybe) not a spiritual seeker as such, but someone desperately looking for a way out, navigates with the advice and guidance of others.

How many times was John Wick told that he’s eventually going to die? Winston, Sofia, and the Elder all remind him of this — John Wick will die not just because the bad guys will get him, but because he is mortal. He listens, but you’re not sure exactly where this advice goes.

Again, as a moviegoer, you buy it. But it’s a bit of a script flip to envision Keanu on the opposite end of this scenario, as the advice-giver, the spirit guide. In movies, the seeker is very different from the guide. One doesn’t become the other just by virtue of getting older.

Maybe he’s already done it — maybe there’s a Keanu-as-guide (apart from SpongeBob) out there. I still have so many Keanu Reeves movies yet to see, and I am open to being proven wrong.

But “of course” is the easy, intuitive answer, because a true seeker has their own kind of wisdom. It is that old line attributed to Socrates: perhaps, I am wise because I know that I do not know. If Keanu Reeves can play the seeker, the listener, so well, of course, he could also play the teacher and the guide.

As for SpongeBob and Patrick, they ignore most of Sage’s sage advice. But at the end, when it’s most important, SpongeBob recalls Sage’s wise words, that the courage he needs is inside him, and he’ll find it when he needs it most.

Good advice. And they do save Gary after all.

March 2022