Overall Rating
  Awesome: 19.14%
Worth A Look: 41.36%
Average: 17.28%
Pretty Bad: 11.73%
Total Crap: 10.49%
10 reviews, 102 user ratings
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| Constantine |
by Rob Gonsalves
"Not the John of the comics, but not bad."
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For those familiar with the Vertigo "Hellblazer" comics, on which "Constantine" is based, Keanu Reeves playing John Constantine is a little like William Hurt playing Denis Leary.In the comics, Constantine is a profane, chain-smoking, irreverent, and deeply British figure, openly contemptuous of anyone he considers a "wanker," whether a junkie or a demigod. Reeves gets Constantine's surface habits but misses the punk-rock edge that laughs in the face of armageddon. For all that, though, this Constantine is acceptable for what it is: a kitchen-sink metaphysical adventure, in which the surly hero slouches unwillingly from one horrific encounter to the next while wishing everyone would just leave him alone to sit and smoke in his dusty Los Angeles apartment.
Constantine, who casts out demons in order to secure himself a good seat in Heaven (he's destined for Hell, for reasons familiar to Catholic readers), gets pulled into a mystery involving a psychic who went sidewalk-diving. The psychic's twin sister Angela (Rachel Weisz), a cop, is convinced that it wasn't suicide. Angela sees her sister on a security camera whispering the name "Constantine" right before she jumps to her death; I'd say Constantine owes the dead sister a cut of his salary for the great reference. In any event, Constantine agrees to figure out what drove the sister to her death and perhaps rescue her soul from Hell.
Constantine is shaped as a supernatural noir, much like the TV series Angel, also set in L.A. (where demons apparently prosper). The fun of the comics was partly in the colorful rogue's gallery of characters Constantine ran across, and the movie gives us Papa Midnite (Djimon Hounsou), a quasi-voodoo man who holes up in a nightclub for psychics only; Beeman (Max Baker), who lives in the back of a bowling alley and can get you any magical gadget; Father Hennessy (jiggly-eyed Pruitt Taylor Vince), an alcoholic priest who calls Constantine in when his exorcism attempts fail; the androgynous Gabriel (Tilda Swinton), an angel not quite of the Roma Downey variety; and Balthazar (Gavin Rossdale, frontman of the rock group Bush), a suave half-breed demon. Constantine is also driven around by Chas (Shia LaBeouf), a kid who wants to be Constantine if and when he grows up.
The movie is certainly more entertaining than last fall's tedious Exorcist: The Beginning; if you're going to make a theological action-adventure, Constantine is much more the way to go. It comes complete with mumbo-jumbo about the birth of the son of Satan, and joining his blood with the blood of Christ to achieve an apocalyptic end; it goes for all the marbles, like any season finale of Buffy or Angel, and the outcome is similarly never in doubt. (You don't watch a hero for two hours or 22 episodes just to see evil triumph at the end -- not in a $100 million Hollywood film, anyway.) While decidedly no one's idea of the John Constantine of the comics (who was originally modelled on Sting), Reeves acquits himself well enough; neither the worst nor the best actor imaginable for the role, he inhabits this pissy character and his bleak surroundings with something like grace. His whoa-dude voice may still wreak havoc with his line readings, but his body has its own eloquence, able to move from cynical slouch to action-hero stance in a heartbeat.
Handsomely shot by Oscar-winning cinematographer Philippe Rousselot, and directed with a strong taste for oblique angles by first-timer Francis Lawrence (another music-video vet), Constantine is one of the better-looking films of the season, despite some dim lighting in a scene involving dozens of buffalo dropping dead (the moment would pack more of a spooky punch if you could see it better). It also occupies a useful middle ground between campiness and taking itself too seriously; it opts for neither of those, approaching its supernatural highlights with a matter-of-fact attitude.As for the movie's apparent fixation on water as a portal to Hell (various characters submerge themselves in bathtubs or dunk their feet in the liquid for a peek at the forbidden, and poor Rachel Weisz seems to spend half the movie drenched), your guess is as good as mine; "Constantine" has been cross-marketed everywhere from Comedy Central to a PlayStation game, but somehow Poland Spring missed out on the merchandising action.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=11745&reviewer=416
originally posted: 12/29/06 08:10:27
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USA
18-Feb-2005 (R)
DVD: 19-Jul-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
24-Feb-2005
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