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 Peter Sobczynski
"A future cult movie for those willing to embrace both its virtues and flaws"
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“Constantine” poses that there is a constant battle between the forces of Heaven and Hell for the souls of all mankind, but that is nothing compared to the epic struggle between the mind and the heart that I found myself undergoing while watching it. The mind kept telling me that this was one of the silliest and most awesomely confusing movies in recent memory–a sound-and-light show that uses lavish special effects and a breakneck pace to cover up a screenplay so muddled that even the writers themselves might flunk a quiz on its details. The heart, on the other hand, kept reminding that while it was quite a bad movie, it was never a boring one and that the sheer insanity was close to a blessed relief from most of the formulaic films that have been coming down the pike lately.Based on the “Hellblazer” comic book (how faithfully or loosely I cannot say), “Constantine” stars Keanu Reeves as John Constantine, a man who, in another time (and another movie) would have been a tough-as-nails private eye; he has a caustic remark for every occasion, always looks as if he just fell out of bed and is so hard-boiled that when he is informed that his cigarette habit has left him with an advanced case of lung cancer, his reaction is to light up another one between coughing fits. Things aren’t that easy for him, however; he was born with the gift/curse to see the agents of Heaven and Hell that surround us all everyday–visions that tormented him so greatly that he committed suicide as a result. Sadly, he was brought back to life after his soul was condemned and his job on Earth is to send wayward demons back to where they came in an effort to spiritually buy his way back into Heaven. (At least that is what I think he does; “Constantine” may do many things but sweating the details isn’t one of them.)
More or less against his will, he finds himself aiding cop Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz) in trying to discover why her devoutly religious twin sister would have committed suicide and damned her own soul. Before long, Constantine begins to tie in the sister to the increased activity of ever-more-powerful demons who seem to attack whenever there is a lull in the narrative. How these threads come together I leave for you to discover, aside from mentioning that they involve the archangel Gabriel (Tilda Swinton), Satan’s right-hoof man Balthazar (Gavin Rossdale, clearly no stranger to mysterious pacts with Satan), a wise-ass kid (Shia LaBeouf), crucifix-bedecked shotguns and brass knuckles, the use of kitty-cats as a portal to the depths of Hell and a depiction of that famous maxim that says that if you introduce the Spear of Destiny (the spear that killed Christ, for those of you who missed “The Passion of the Christ”) in the first act of a story, you had best better use it by the last.
The above may sound utterly screwy but I assure you that I am making it sound far more coherent in the retelling that it plays out on screen. Simply put, the film is a mess that isn’t nearly clever as it thinks it is–the notion of fusing the private eye and satanic horror genres has been done before, most notably the mostly brilliant “Angel Heart” and the odd cable film “Cast a Deadly Spell”–and it is kind of amusing to discover that the film hasn’t discovered a theological argument that couldn’t be solved for the ages with an explosion or a punch to the face. Additionally, all the characters (even Satan, portrayed by Peter Stormare in a manner that makes Al Pacino’s turn in “The Devil’s Advocate” appear minimalist by comparison) seem to have vaguely defined powers that, when finally deployed, are so all-powerful that you begin to wonder why they didn’t just use them in the first place and save everyone a lot of time and energy. Then again, I suppose I shouldn’t expect deep eschatological thinking from a film directed by the guy who did the “Cry Me a River” video (Francis Lawrence) and a writing team ( Kevin Brodbin and Frank Cappello) who have penned, between them, the likes of “Suburban Commando,” “Flubber,” “Timeline” and the still-shelved “Mindhunters.”
And yet, while the film grows more and more preposterous by the minute, there was a small part of me that was actually kind of enjoying it despite, or possibly because of, its lurid excesses. First off, this is one of the best-looking bad movies in recent memory; cinematographer Philippe Rousselot gives it a haunting visual style (hellish and grimy in a strangely beautiful way) that focuses attention even as the narrative is flying off the rails. Additionally, while Keanu Reeves may initially seem like a bad fit for the role–less because of the fact that he isn’t British like the character in the comics and more because he still seems too baby-faced for the ultra-cynical Constantine–he does have a facility (no doubt developed during the “Matrix” movies) of making even the most bewildering sights seem like just another day on the job and not just an actor looking at effects that won’t be added in for a few months. Finally, I enjoyed the fact that while it may be ridiculously pretentious, it does so in such a straightforward way that it is hard to resist it after a while; after all, when was the last time that you heard a character in a movie bellow “I will smite thee!”and genuinely sound as if they meant it?Rational people should probably avoid “Constantine” like the plague; its lurid charms will be lost on those who demand a staid sensibility in their popcorn entertainment. For those who don’t require such things, “Constantine” can be seen as one of those future cult movies beloved by those willing to embrace both its virtues and flaws equally. Myself, while I am not certain that I would willingly pony up any money to see it again anytime soon, I maintain a grudging affection for it and I can envision a time in which I might find myself firing up the DVD–most likely with the sound either muted or turned to one of the foreign-language tracks.
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link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=11745&reviewer=389
originally posted: 02/18/05 14:48:02
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USA
18-Feb-2005 (R)
DVD: 19-Jul-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
24-Feb-2005
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