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 "Constantine" Chris' Review: "This is Constantine. John Constantine, asshole." I'm really torn. Before I ever entered the theatre, I wanted to love this movie... I wanted to hate this movie. After watching it, I'm still torn. Part of me thinks that it's a great film... or at least a good way to while away a couple hours. Another part of me thinks that it should be stacked up with other great comic book fiascos, such as Daredevil and The Punisher, and burned. Lemme explain. It was just so hard for me to seperate the comic from the movie. I'm a big fan of the comic book series that Constantine was based on. Hellblazer is an intelligently written book that generally deals more with social issues than with the arcane. In it, John Constantine, much like in the movie, is a paranormal expert. He has oodles of mystic artifacts, knows more about demons than pretty much anyone, and has a gift for the grift. His nickname is Con-Job. If one had to give a short physical description: rumpled clothes, rumpled tie, equally rumpled brown trenchcoat, blonde hair, and chain-smoking with a heavy cockney accent. The movie got the chain-smoking right. So right off the bat, no blonde hair, no accent, black trenchcoat... I almost didn't want to see this movie on that basis alone. Still, it is Constantine... and they have one of the original comic book writers on staff for the script... how bad can it get? Well, it doesn't improve, from a comic book geek's perspective. On the other hand, the movie wasn't a complete flop. Keanu Reeves does a better than average job at depicting Constantine's persona. Harsh, rude, cocky, and usually pissed (that's the cockney version of "pissed" not the American version.) As has been the norm in the past few years, Keanu is making a marked improvement in his acting. He has finally gotten over his surfer boy character and is finally doing some real acting. I'm still not going to say that he's good, but I won't lump him with Kevin Costner. More the problem, I would say, would be with the script. For some reason, the Hollywood Machine decided that Keanu couldn't be blonde, that a black trenchcoat would make Constantine that much darker, and it was okay to have him hauling around a huge gun with a cross on it. Either that or the direction. Certainly, the movie worked on it's own merit, but (as I've been ranting)it's not Constantine. I have a tendancy, because the characters were acted so well and the movie was done well, to give more credit to the director, but when Chaz is a kid... an apprentice... instead of just a trusted friend. That stinks of directorial mistake. WARNING: Spoiler ahead. What was up with Chaz, anyway? He's supposed to be the only friend that Constantine has that manages to stay out of the magic and manages, by some miraculous chance, to stay alive. He's one of the only people that Constantine doesn't get killed. The rest of the acting wasn't half bad. I particularly liked Gabriel's (Tilda Swinton)performance. But the devil's (Peter Stormare) was brilliant. Something about the way he was portrayed. Kind of like you'd expect the devil to be if you really thought about it. He's one of the most powerful beings in the cosmos, what need does he have for acting tough... plus, you're more prone to misjudge him, which is his forte. Very amusing. The brightest spot in this film, and what makes it so difficult for me to dislike, is the spectacular special effects. From the initial credits and company logos, to the stop-time shattering of a plate glass door. (One dark spot is the "Constantine" title. As a graphic artist it really upset me to see that no one had bothered to reset the lettering... like the artist had never taken a topography class and just expected the computer to match the weights perfectly. That's just a personal gripe, though.) The special effcts were just phenomenal. Every character was realized, the angels' wings were gorgeously rendered, the crumbling, burning, decay representing hell really made the movie. Without this, I would have rated this movie much lower, but with them, I am giving it 4 thumbs up. Worth watching, maybe worth owning... and for me, because of the title, I'll definitely pick up a copy.   Jim's Review: BackHome - Info - Reviews - Map - Message Board - Photo Album |
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