Keanu Reeves Battled the Forces of Good and Evil in Constantine
Written: May 14 '08 (Updated Oct 08 '08)
Product Rating:
Pros: Interesting plot. Entertaining. Decent cast for the most part.
Cons: Reeves. Changes will bother fans of the comic book.
The Bottom Line: I enjoyed Constantine for the most part and thought that the plot was interesting and entertaining. Fans of the source material will more than likely be disappointed.
There are many comic books being made that I know nothing about. I have first learned about some characters only because a movie was made. I learned about the Hellblazer comic book when the movie Constantine was made.
John Constantine was able to see half-demons and half-angels. After learning first had that he wanted no part of hell, John decided to use his ability to deal with the demons to try to buy his way into heaven. He didn't have a lot of time left to do that since he had terminal lung cancer thanks to his chain smoking habit. He was bothered by an exorcism he had done on a young woman because of the type of demon that had possessed her. That got him to thinking that something was going to happen.
Angela Dodson, a detective on the Los Angels police force, didn’t believe that her twin sister Isabel had committed suicide because they were devout Catholics even though there was no evidence to indicate anything else. Angela sought out John to try to find answers. He wasn’t interested in helping her at first, but he changed his mind once he saw that demons were after Angela. They discovered that Mammon, the son of Satan, had a plan to invade Earth and take over. John had to come up with a rather extreme way to deal with the situation.
When I first saw Constantine, I didn’t know anything about John or the Hellblazer comic book. I did enjoy the movie when I first saw it and I still enjoyed it when I watched it again recently. I’m thinking that I may not have liked it as much if I had known more about the source material. After watching the movie again this time, I did some research on the character and comic book. Only bits and pieces were pulled from the comic, with most things about the character, including the fact that he was supposed to be blonde and from England, were changed or cut out. From what I have read, John’s motivation for fighting demons was created just for the movie. He had been more like a magician who was turned into what amounted to an exorcist. The lung cancer was in the comics, but even that was handled a bit differently. After learning more about the source material, I can see why people would be disappointed with the movie.
Most of Constantine was focused on figuring out why the demons were acting differently and what exactly was going on with them. That was tied into Isabel’s death. There was more going on with that than it seemed at first like Angela believed. I wasn’t sure how everything was going to work out, but there really wasn’t a lot of mystery to the plot and certain things were rather predictable. The idea of demons trying to invade Earth isn’t exactly new, though it was handled slightly different than I have seen it done before. I didn’t think that the movie was suspenseful, but it did keep my interest and I thought it was interesting.
John battled a few different demons over the course of Constantine. That did add a bit of action and some violence to certain scenes. One of the demons he faced was really icky looking since he was made up of a bunch of bugs, rats, and some snakes. Thankfully the snakes weren’t that noticeable to me, so I didn’t completely freak out. Some of the things that happened during fights could be disturbing or upsetting to some viewers. Certain things that were shown were a bit extreme, which helped get the movie an R rating. I do think the rating was justified and this is not a movie for children to see. The fights did help to keep things moving along and interesting. John did have a few unique ways of dealing with demons, like trapping one in a mirror, that I haven’t seen done before. John also had a modified shotgun that included a crucifix. There were a few magical elements in the movie, but it did seem like most of those things had been left out.
Heaven and hell played a huge part in Constantine. The movie did follow the Catholic view on those things, with people who kill themselves being sent to hell. John found that out firsthand as a teenager when he couldn’t cope with seeing all the demons anymore. He was only dead for two minutes, but it was long enough for him to be condemned to hell. After that, he decided to use his ability to send demons back to hell as a way to try to buy his way back into heaven. Hell was shown a few times and it was a different look than how it has been depicted in other movies. There weren’t all the flames, but there were plenty of demons running around and it was clearly not somewhere you’d want to be. Most of the demons, as well as angels, couldn’t actually enter Earth. Only ones that John called half-breeds were able to do that. I think Balthazar, one of the half demons, was shown more than Gabriel the angel. I thought that the special effects used throughout the movie were well done.
John had struggled with his ability to see demons before his suicide attempt caused him to start fighting the demons to try to win his way into heaven. He was helping other people by dealing with the demons, but his main motivation was to help himself. He received help from a few people, but tended to work on his own most of the time. Keanu Reeves wasn’t anything special in the part. He was flat and emotionless for must of the movie, something that isn’t new with his acting. He’s just not that talented.
Isabel and Angela were raised Catholic and still active in the religion. Isabelle had been in and out of mental hospitals for years because of her claims of seeing things. Angela didn’t have that problem and was a police detective. She had very strong instincts when solving crimes at times. Angela was convinced that Isabelle wouldn’t willingly kill herself and she set out to discover what really happened with John’s help. Her beliefs did go through some changes by the end of the movie. Rachel Weisz was good as Angela and Isabelle, though Isabelle was only briefly shown alive.
Chas Kramer was the young man who was sort of working with John. Most of the time, Chas only acted as a driver for John, though he was eager to be more active in what John was doing. Chas did say and do a few things that added a little bit of humor. Shia LaBeouf was fine in the part. Midnite ran a club that catered to the half-demons and half-angels. Midnite knew many things, but he stayed neutral in the battle between good and evil. Djimon Hounsou was good in the part.
The angel Gabriel has been in other books and movies, but the version for this movie was different. The character was played by Tilda Swinton as sort of a sexless being. It was very interesting, along with what the character was ultimately up to. Balthazar turned up in a few scenes. He enjoyed trying to influence people to do evil things. Late in the movie, Satan even turned up. He was clearly very evil, but his appearance was a bit different since he was dressed all in white instead of red or black.
Main Cast
Djimon Hounsou - Midnite Shia LaBeouf - Chas Keanu Reeves - John Constantine Tilda Swinton - Gabriel Rachel Weisz - Angela/Isabelle Dodson
Francis Lawrence - Director
DVD Information
I first saw Constantine when I rented the DVD. I ended up picking up a copy of the movie when I found it for about $8.00. The version I own is the two disc deluxe edition. The movie is in the widescreen format on this version. I’m not sure if there is a full screen version available as well. The first disc had commentary by the director, producer and screenwriters. It also has the theatrical trailers and a music video. Most of the extras were on the second disc.
There were eighteen minutes of deleted scenes, including an alternate ending that was interesting. Most of the deleted scenes really didn’t add much of anything, so it made sense why they were cut out. Michelle Monaghan was in a few of the scenes as a demon that John sometimes had a sexual relationship with. Conjuring Constantine featured people involved in the making of the movie talking about the history of the character and the movie in general. It was said how people at Vertigo/DC were surprised that John wasn’t going to be from England. One of the screenwriters talked about how he liked the story from the comics of John getting lung cancer, but he didn’t explain why it was changed from the source material or why other changes were made. The other extras showed how the looks of different things for the movie were created. I did think the extras were interesting.
Constantine was an entertaining movie that I did enjoy for the most part. I don’t think I would have liked it as much if I had been familiar with the source material before seeing the movie because of all the changes. I have read that a second movie is under development, but nothing definite has been decided yet.
I would have rated this one three and a half stars if I had the option. Since I didn't, I decided to round up to four stars.
John Constantine sees demons walk the earth, and he aims to do something about it: send them back to hell!As Constantine, The Matrix s Keanu Reeves fi...More at Buy.com
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.