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 Brian McKay
"The Exorcist . . . by James Ellroy"
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There's nothing I like more than being pleasantly surprised by a film that I thought would be mediocre at best - and CONSTANTINE is a pleasant surprise indeed. It's my joyful duty to report that the traditional beginning-of-the-year deluge of crap movies is officially over. CONSTANTINE breathes new life into the old Heaven vs. Hell chestnut in the same way that the original BLADE revitalized the vampire genre, and does so with a heavy dose of hard-boiled style and film noir sensibility. It's as if someone took a film like THE EXORCIST and said "You know, this is great, but there's just something missing. Oh, I know what it is - the ASS KICKING!"John Constantine (Keanu Reeves) is a chain-smoking, tough-talking, and ass-kicking Exorcist, taking out the demonic trash like a hybrid of Father Karras and Mike Hammer. But Constantine is also a man trapped between Heaven and Hell. He can't get into the former because he once committed the mortal sin of suicide, making him ineligible to enter the pearly gates. He's not real keen on going to hell either, since many of the demonic creatures there have an axe to grind with him. So, he tries to earn his way back into Heaven's good graces by working as a kind of divine border patrol cop - "deporting" any demonic creatures that try to interfere in human affairs back to hell, and using a combination of weapons that include charms, incantations, and shotgun shells full of holy water.
But these good deeds are not enough to guarantee his salvation. Only a true act of self sacrifice can redeem him. Not entirely by coincidence, his demon-hunting affairs become entangled with police detective Angela Dodson's (Rachel Weisz) investigation into the apparent suicide of her twin sister. Convinced that her sister would never take her own life, she asks Constantine to help her find some answers.
What they discover is that the son of Satan himself is planning a hostile takeover of Earth, and Constantine is the only one in a position to do anything about it. Through Constantine's eyes, we see both Los Angeles' seedy underworld of half-demons and half-angels who peddle influence among humans on behalf of their masters, and the actual underworld of fire-blasted ruins and tormented souls that rests on a plane just beneath the world we know.
CONSTANTINE is a film that, while at times blatantly derivative, also puts quite an original spin on the notions of exorcism, divine intervention, and the rules that govern both angels and demons alike. It's full of clever and, at times, funny ideas (Like a demonic version of The Bible that has extra chapters in it - the "director's cut", one might say). It's also full of great action sequences, sharp dialogue, and carefully developed and sympathetic characters. And while I usually find Reeve's attempts at emoting or having more than three facial expressions laughable, I give props where props are due. He is damn good in this film, and he gives Constantine the kind of acidic humor, gruff charm, and forceful charisma needed to sell the role. As a friend pointed out after seeing the film, "For a guy who we think of as a big hunk of wood in the acting department, we sure do see a lot of his movies". Very true, and there's a reason for it - when his acting skills fail, his persona tends to even out the balance. It's a rare treat when he delivers in both categories, however - and damn, is it enjoyable here. Likewise, Weisz gives a surprisingly heartfelt and sympathetic performance - not the kind you generally find in a monster-hunter type of movie. Her anguish over her sister's death is palpable, and the chemistry between her and Reeves flows easily.
If anything makes the film fall a tad short of a five-star rating, it would have to be a few arid stretches where the pacing gets bogged down (But have no fear, there will always be something very cool around the corner to make up for it), and the generally solid writing only serves to sharply contrast the one or two clunky or cliche'd lines of dialogue that occasionally pop up - such as:
Angela: "I don't believe in the devil."
Constantine: "Well you should, he believes in you"
But despite stooping to the occasional groaner, the dialogue moves the story along nicely, not indulging in bursts of blatant exposition. As Constantine, Reeves delivers one-liners with brutal precision. And although there are moments in the film that feel highly derivative of the aforementioned BLADE or even Reeve's MATRIX franchise, it won't dampen your enjoyment of it one bit. Just because the scene where he cleans out a hospital full of demons is very reminiscent of the opening "Bloodbath" scene in BLADE doesn't make it any less fucking cool. As long as you are able to accept at face value the somewhat murky and highly Catholicized doctrines that govern the war between Heaven and Hell and just roll with it, CONSTANTINE will get under your skin in all the right ways (and if you like it enough to get to the ending credits, then you should stick around to see what happens after they finish rolling).CONSTANTINE is the first solid action film of the year, and certainly one of the best performances of Reeve's career. They could have come up with a more exciting movie poster, though.
 del.icio.us 
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=11745&reviewer=258
originally posted: 02/20/05 23:10:58
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USA
18-Feb-2005 (R)
DVD: 19-Jul-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
24-Feb-2005
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