Constantine

[Dr. Whom]

What to say about Constantine? Well, I’ve never read the comics and I quite like Keanu Reeves (No, I don’t know why this is and no, I haven’t yet sought professional help about it). So perhaps I’m not ideally placed to comment on it. It certainly did have some interest-ing elements, although it is easy to see why it never was a great success at the box office.
For starters, this whole Son of Satan, Life and Death, Good & Evil Coming Apocalypse thing passes more easily in comics than on screen. A straight fight between good & evil is OK, but these sort of double crossing cold war situations, with the question of personal salvation thrown in, is just too much.If you want to keep the attention of a mainstream au-dience, you don’t treat these kind of metaphysical choices in deadly earnest. You’ve got to be a little tongue in cheek, or at least make some jokes about it.
Secondly, the film has precious little exposition, and most of it is mumbled by Keanu Reeves, which doesn’t exactly help things. I kind of had the same feeling watching Nochnoi Dozor. It is obvious that somebody has thought this through and that at some level, everything fits, but as nobody is explaining it, you only have a very vague idea what the hell is going on. I am interested in the occult and have seen many b-movies, not to mention every episode of Buffy twice, but even so, I had to watch carefully to make some sense of it. For anyone not deeply steeped in the genre, the plot must be impenetrable. This is very much a movie for the aficionados who don’t mind making an effort.
In fact, I watched the DVD again, with the commentary track of the writers, and they have indeed put in lots of details that have their significance in the world of the story. For rea-sons of realism they couldn’t be bothered to put explanation in the script.
Thirdly, the main villain, Mammon was useless.
What I did like was the whole seedy atmosphere of the thing. Constantine is coughing up blood all the time, Angela vomits when she sees the demons, people get possessed and you get the impression that the human characters at least aren’t feeling very well most of the time. Also visually, it is very well done.
Another strong point is its absence of superheroes and romance. There is no love interest, of cutesy scenes. The main characters aren’t too likeable and they both have things on their conscience. Altogether a more unpleasant world than your average boy-meets-girl and together they battle the monsters movie.
I also like the whole take on angels and demons. Tilda Swinton is magnificent (as usual) as Gabriel. I particularly like the bit where he/she says to Constantine: you’re f**ked. Imagine having an angel saying that to you. Lucifer is very good too. Extremely creepy, without falling into cliché.
As for Keanu Reeves, well he is Keanu Reeves. I’ve never understood the people who say he can or cannot act. I mean he has developed this kind of film persona, and whatever he does, he remains the same, much like Cary Grant or Charles Bronson.

[odinn7]

I saw the movie a while back and I was entertained by it. There were some holes and some things that I thought could be done differently but overall it was a fairly decent and fun movie.

[akiratubo]

I thought this was pretty good.

[Archivist]

I saw this in the cinema about halfway through last year, and I didn't mind it.  It wasn't something to write home about, but not bad, either.

AlexB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What to say about Constantine? Well, I’ve never
> read the comics and I quite like Keanu Reeves (No,
> I don’t know why this is and no, I haven’t yet
> sought professional help about it). So perhaps I’m
> not ideally placed to comment on it. It certainly
> did have some interest-ing elements, although it
> is easy to see why it never was a great success at
> the box office.

Hey, I've never read the comics but I kinda like Keanu, too.  I don't think a movie of this genre and plot were ever destined for box office success, though.  It's more of a niche market movie.

> For starters, this whole Son of Satan, Life and
> Death, Good & Evil Coming Apocalypse thing
> passes more easily in comics than on screen. A
> straight fight between good & evil is OK, but
> these sort of double crossing cold war situations,
> with the question of personal salvation thrown in,
> is just too much.If you want to keep the attention
> of a mainstream au-dience, you don’t treat these
> kind of metaphysical choices in deadly earnest.
> You’ve got to be a little tongue in cheek, or at
> least make some jokes about it.

End of Days had a similarly 'straight' tones to the good vs. evil battle.  IMO, movies that try to sneak it in by starting out pseudo-innocently and then explaining, 'well, it's all about the fight between good and evil, Dave,' ring my cliche bells.  Constantine is very direct and upfront about it, and the first scenes are like saying, "This is what we're all about.  Take it or leave it."

> Secondly, the film has precious little exposition,
> and most of it is mumbled by Keanu Reeves, which
> doesn’t exactly help things. I kind of had the
> same feeling watching Nochnoi Dozor. It is obvious
> that somebody has thought this through and that at
> some level, everything fits, but as nobody is
> explaining it, you only have a very vague idea
> what the hell is going on. I am interested in the
> occult and have seen many b-movies, not to mention
> every episode of Buffy twice, but even so, I had
> to watch carefully to make some sense of it. For
> anyone not deeply steeped in the genre, the plot
> must be impenetrable. This is very much a movie
> for the aficionados who don’t mind making an
> effort.

Funny, because I found it quite straightforward.  Good vs. evil.  Constantine is kind of a super-exorcist.  Evil wants the Spear of Destiny.  Sure, the mainstream public might not be aware of the whole Spear legend, but IMO that's just another part of the plot.

I had misgivings about Nochnoy Dozor for different reasons.  I found it kind of disappointing, like it was full of promise (especially given the initial scenes), but it just became flat and slow in several segments.  The direction didn't provide enough 'forward momentum', and the ending seemed flat as well.

Having said that, I'm probably going to see parts II and III when they come out.

> What I did like was the whole seedy atmosphere of
> the thing. Constantine is coughing up blood all
> the time, Angela vomits when she sees the demons,
> people get possessed and you get the impression
> that the human characters at least aren’t feeling
> very well most of the time. Also visually, it is
> very well done.

The visual direction and effects are indeed strong points, definitely.

> I also like the whole take on angels and demons.
> Tilda Swinton is magnificent (as usual) as
> Gabriel. I particularly like the bit where he/she
> says to Constantine: you’re f**ked. Imagine having
> an angel saying that to you. Lucifer is very good
> too. Extremely creepy, without falling into
> cliché.

Tilda Swinton is marvelous in that movie.

> As for Keanu Reeves, well he is Keanu Reeves. I’ve
> never understood the people who say he can or
> cannot act. I mean he has developed this kind of
> film persona, and whatever he does, he remains the
> same, much like Cary Grant or Charles Bronson.

Very true.  I have yet to see a movie where he's another character, rather than 'Keanu playing a character'.  Compare him with someone like Gary Oldman, who did such a masterful job as Gordon in Batman Begins that I didn't even realize it was him, and there is a world of difference.  Other people I have spoken to never realized that Gordon was played by Oldman until after the movie, either.  Keanu has become 'Keanu', and I think directors realize this and play it.

No, wait.  What about The Gift?  He did pretty well as the violent redneck, and for a while I was surprised at his transformation there.

~Archivist~

[C.B.W.]

I ended up enjoying this movie despite myself.

I especially liked the casting of Tilda Swinton and thought Peter Stormare (who is always great) made an excellent choice for Satan...the fact that he was dripping tar just sealed the deal.

[Shadowphile]

Tilda Swinton is wonderfully androgynous.  She does a terrifc White Witch in Narnia as well.  I've fallen madly in love with her based on these two roles....

Peter Stormare was born to play Lucifer.  check him out in Fargo as well.  

[Dr. Whom]

C.B.W. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I>
> I especially liked the casting of Tilda Swinton
> and thought Peter Stormare (who is always great)
> made an excellent choice for Satan...the fact that
> he was dripping tar just sealed the deal.
>
>

Apparently he has to stain the ground before he can walk on it, hence he first lands on kind of chair and drips tar on the floor (I found this out through the commentary track)

[Neville]

Well, first of all let me say that I'm a major Hellblazer fan, and that I own pretty much everything it's been printed. Hellblazer, the comic, treats John Constantine as a sort of private eye from a hard boiled novel, with the main differences being that he is even more morally ambiguous (he's known to allow or even set up human deaths to carry out his plans) and that practically of all his cases, which he comes across by himself, rarely being contacted by others, deal with the supernatural.

The comic presents, as AlexB says, a major struggle between Good and Evil, similar to our Cold War, but that is only a very loose background to Constantine exploits, and the focus of the comic is usually in its dark tone, Constantine's inner struggle to become a better person and the things he is forced to do to avoid major evil, and extremely politically incorrect humour.

As I see it, the problem with the film is that they ditched most of the humour and obscurity (you'd be surprised if you read the comicbook) and then concentrated on plot (which is rathe obscure). Another problem with the film is that many things were toned down for comercial purposes, such as Constantine's degree of creepinesss. And don't make me mention the Matrix-esque action scenes.

This said, Constantine the movie is not all that bad. Some of the casting decisions (Tilda Swinton, Peter Stormare and, to a lesser degree, Djimon Honsou) work very well, and Reeves is actually doing his best, but with a toned-down Constantine he's not capable of much. And some details of the plot (the opening exorcism, the war between angles and demons, the legendary echoes) and neat visuals (the fight against the swarm of bugs, Hell itself) remind the comicbook well enough.  

If you want to know the REAL Constantine, you should read the compilations "Original sins" and, specially, "Dangerous habits" which partially served as an inspiration for the film.  

[Herodotus]

Thanks, Shadowphile, now I can come out and confess my love for Tilda too! :)

[Neville]

Hey, same here. I forgot. IMHO she was the only good thing in that gutless Narmia movie.

[BeyondTheGrave]

I am a fan of the Hellblazer comic like Neville and the only probably I had with the movie was the end. Besides that it was decent enough.

[dean]

I loved the movie when it came out, and then a friend introduced me to Hellblazer, and now I'm a fan of that too.

They really are different, comic and movie, with Constantine a blonde, wise-ass Brit who has questionable morals, and all his friends hate him.  But then again, the movie version was fine too, and just because it was different doesn't mean it's worse.

The comic is far superior though, in terms of nastiness and generally great moments.  Probably not suited to the big screen though, so I do appreciate the changes that were made for the movie.