Send in the clones
Michael Keaton is four times the fun in Multiplicity
By BOB THOMPSON
Toronto Sun

NEW YORK -- The question Michael Keaton is considering is this: How can you be so many places at once and feel like you are nowhere at all?

Keaton, savvy media devil that he is, knows that the inquiry has a cloaking device.

On one hand, Keaton might assume that he should discuss the issue and how it relates to his new movie, Multiplicity, which opens Friday.

The Harold Ramis fantasy deals with Keaton's Doug Kinney, who is an overworked construction supervisor defeated by the demands of his job, his family and his wife. But Keaton's character gets help from a wacky therapist when the therapist clones him.

It's the perfect cautionary comedy for the '90s. And that aspect of the film -- a sort of second chapter to Ramis' other fable, Groundhog Day -- was certainly one of the reasons Keaton was so intent on pursuing the Multiplicity show-off role.

Why show off? Keaton plays four characters, sometimes in the same scene -- and thanks to state-of-the-art special effects -- sometimes moving around each other at the same time.

So that's Multiplicity.

But Keaton knows passive aggressive snoopiness when he hears it, and settles back in his chair as he prepares to launch into his `more-than-you-can-be' Batman manifesto, as it relates to trying to be in so many places and feeling like you are nowhere at all.

Keaton, the often erratic and occasionally moody actor, knows that he is almost better known for turning down the third multimillion-dollar Batman experience than for starring in the first two.

Which is still an improvement over gaining media notoriety for calling it quits with his significant other, Friends TV star Courteney Cox. And no, he won't talk about it.

He will speak to his Batman rejection, which became especially ironic when his replacement choice turned out to be Speechless, which turned out to be completely box-office-less.

The Batman shadow loomed even larger afterward and still casts a shadow -- yes, even over Multiplicity.

"It wasn't, y'know, a cavalier decision," Keaton says of the Batman turndown, as he tugs at his baseball cap while initiating his ritual jumpy stop-start conversation.

"I understand the huge corporate machine that it is, which is not a bad thing to me. And I liked being a part of it, when I was.

"But I had done two of them, and there was nothing about the third one that made me jump up and down."

Now he tries to be philosophical, leaning forward: "It was not the easiest decision in the world, but when, y'know, I made it, it was the easiest thing in the world."

Ditto Multiplicity.

In typical Keaton fashion, making a commitment to Multiplicity was a drawn-out process of maybes and maybe nots.

When Ramis finally agreed to bring in Keaton's writing buddies from Night Shift, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandell, for a rewrite, Keaton signed up.

It wasn't long before he was suffering from multiple actor personality confusion while portraying his over-scheduled everyman and his three clone clinic knock-offs designed for different purposes.

For instance, clone Two is the tough and gruff on-the-job construction supervisor in touch with his testosterone.

Three is an organized and compulsively clean domestic in touch with his feminine side, while Four turns out to be buffoon-like and not in touch with much of anything.

Keaton had to shoot scenes for each character separately, acting to air each time. Some days he had to make more than 25 character and costume changes.

"There were days," he says, "when I honestly didn't know who I was playing. That was like many days, not once or twice."

Ramis would start a scene, and Keaton would pipe in with, "Wait a minute, I don't know which one I am now -- which, for me, I guess, is not unusual."

He chuckles at his self-deprecating joke.

But there were more serious things to consider. Stuff that was no laughing matter to Michael Keaton, who, as we know, has a serious side.

For instance, the issue of portraying clone Three as a fey kind of gay man might have some negative ramifications for Keaton and the movie.

"He's a good communicator and a good guy," Keaton says, prepared for the testimony. "Nah, I jumped right at it. I think I'm okay in that area, depending on who you talk to.

"Y'know he is who is. I'm not going to defend him. He's a good person and that's good enough."

On a less politically correct theme, Keaton also confesses to some Mr. Mom similarities in Multiplicity sequences. "I had Harold cut a whole bunch of them out of the movie," says the star of Mr. Mom and Multiplicity.

And, yes, he admits to a brief Odd Couple moment between clones Two and Three, and then there is the more telling disclosure concerning the goofy clone Four.

"There were times when I said, 'I just did Jerry Lewis.' I would not lie. I would say I wanted to do Jerry Lewis, if I did. But I didn't. So after I did a take somebody said, `You just did Jerry Lewis,' and I said, `Cool.' "

Keaton's okay with that.

At this point in his life, he's trying to be okay with a lot of things.

Beetlejuice 2?

Keaton's Multiplicity good but ignored
By NEAL WATSON
Edmonton Sun
Not exactly the buff, action-hero type, Michael Keaton was a surprise choice for the title role in 1989's Batman. It was even more shocking when he chose to walk away from the role after 1992's Batman Returns.

But Keaton has gone to great lengths over the course of a 14-year film career to shed his image as a light comedian - and that includes the decision to don the Batsuit. His success as a movie star has come in those comedic roles, while his dramatic turns have largely been ignored by movie-goers.

Multiplicity, in which Keaton played a father/husband/businessman who attempts to accommodate his crazy schedule by cloning himself (Hollywood high concept at its finest, folks) was a role consistent with what fans have come to expect. Despite very fine work from Keaton as a variety of characters, the film slipped through the cracks, largely unnoticed in the busy summer season. Multiplicity is one of the week's big video releases.

A former standup comic, Keaton is very funny in the right role, but his body of work suggests a very versatile actor. Here are the highlights of the funny and serious Keaton at his best:

Night Shift (1982): Playing a manic morgue attendant who runs a call-girl service on the side, Keaton made his film debut in Ron Howard's comedy and stole the show right out from under supposed star Henry Winkler.

Mr. Mom (1982): Keaton is very funny as an auto exec who loses his job and sinks into a boozy depression trying to deal with the rigors of life as a house husband.

Keaton churned out a series of mediocre box-office busts in the mid-'80s including Johnny Dangerously, Gung-Ho, Touch and Go (as a pro hockey player who skated about as well as your average pee wee) and The Squeeze, but his career got hot again in 1988 with the release of Tim Burton's Beetlejuice. While he had competition in the scene-stealing department from Catherine O'Hara's yuppie art dealer, Keaton was hilarious as the title character in this inventive life-after-death farce.

Clean and Sober (1988): With the box office hit Beetlejuice providing him the opportunity to take a role that would expand his range in the eyes of the industry, Keaton tried on the expensive loafers of an out-of-control yuppie real estate broker who hits bottom and heads for detox. He was superb in the unsympathetic role, but the film was too harsh for most.

Batman: Playing the Caped Crusader must have been a thrill, but who would have been jazzed about being so thoroughly upstaged by Jack Nicholson's Joker? The Batman movies are about the villains. Ask Keaton - and Val Kilmer.

Pacific Heights (1990): A routine thriller from director John Schlesinger, but Keaton added menace to his bag of tricks with a good performance as the "tenant from hell" who torments his yuppie landlords.

The Paper (1994): Ron Howard's drama goes over the top too soon, but Keaton had one of his best roles as the dedicated, sometimes obsessed, city editor of a major New York daily newspaper.

THE MICHAEL KEATON FILE

BORN: Michael Douglas, in 1951, outside of Pittsburgh, one of seven kids. Moved to L.A. after high school to attend college.

GOOD-BAD NEWS: While taking acting lessons in L.A., scored big at Comedy Store standup. Followed that with movies: Night Shift and Mr. Mom, fired from The Purple Rose Of Cairo by Woody Allen, Batman-Batman Returns, Speechless.

PERSONAL: Watch Keaton get really terse when you ask about his personal life, or even his time as the single parent of his 13-year-old son. He does mention that he is proud of being Mr. Dad and Mr. Actor.