"Constantine" (2005)
Starring Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Tilda Swinson, Gavin Rossdale
Directed by Francis Lawrence
"Constantine," the second comic book movie in less than two months, is a giant, dark mess of a film, but little elements here and there make it a hard movie to hate completely.
Keanu Reeves plays John Constantine, an exorcist who has the ability to see half-angels and half-demons. Since he tried to commit suicide when he was 15, Constantine is doomed to Hell when he dies. To redeem himself in the eyes of God to get into Heaven it is Constantine's job to send as many misbehaving half-breeds back to Hell to redeem himself in the eyes of God to get into Heaven. But he doesn't have much time left because he's diagnosed with a severe form of lung cancer from smoking most of his life. A detective named Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz, "The Mummy") approaches a reluctant Constantine to find out what really happened to her twin sister who committed suicide under mysterious circumstances. Angela believes that her sister, as a "devout Catholic," was forced into the suicide. (Why are they always Catholic in these films?) It is all eventually linked to a newly found religious artifact called the Spear of Destiny, the spear that punctured Christ on the cross.
Part of the problem with the film is the screenplay. Kevin Brodbin and Frank Cappello's screenplay is hard to follow at times and seems written as if only fans of the graphic novel "Hellblazer" were going to go see the movie. One glaring example of this is a scene later on in the film where Constantine tries to put his arms together to form a symbol that has some sort of magical power. It's never established in the film that something would happen if he did that. You see the tattoos on his arm throughout the film, but they never get explained, so what is supposed to be climactic becomes rather anti-climactic. It seems like the screenwriters' task was to try to fit what could have easily been a three-hour movie into two, and cut things just for the sake of cutting.
Another problem was Reeves, although he does a decent job, you can't help but think you have seen this character in another movie, three to be exact. The names of these films are slipping my mind right now. Perhaps if I free my mind it'll come to me later. Weisz does solid work with her two characters and actually manages to play two characters distinctively. For a British actress her American accent isn't bad.
Beyond Weisz's character, most of the rest of the cast don't get much of an explanation beyond their initial introduction. First up on our list of one-dimensional supporting characters we have an alcoholic priest (Pruitt Taylor Vince, "Monster") whose only reason for being an alcoholic is to take away the voices of hell he hears in his head. Next we have a religious relics salesman (Max Baker, "Life or Something Like It"), who's like Constantine's version of Q from the James Bond movies. We also have a nightclub owner (Djimon Hounson, "Biker Boyz") who's a former witch doctor whose clientele are half-breeds. Then there's Constantine's assistant, Chas (Shia LeBeouf, "Holes"), who wants to be like Constantine and talks likes a white guy trying to be "street" (basically the same character he played in "I, Robot.") It would have been nice to see more of these characters throughout the film and their relationship to Constantine, instead of randomly thrown in for plot convenience.
As if there weren't enough characters populating the screen, there are two other characters worth mentioning: the half-angel Gabriel (Tilda Swinton, "Vanilla Sky") and the half-demon Balthazar (Gavin Rossdale, lead singer of Bush). Gabriel is an androgynous being who seems to have resentment towards humans, while Balthazar seems to be acting on murderous orders from the devil himself. Both Swinton and Rossdale do well with their parts, but Rossdale is the real surprise. He has a movie star quality to him and hopefully he'll get better roles in the future.
Visually, the movie conveyed a spiritual version of film noir filmmaking. First time director Francis Lawrence's version of Hell as downtown Los Angeles during rush hour is rather amusing, but a lot of the colors were muddy and bland. The visual look of the demons was definitely cool. They looked scary and creepy, and I probably jumped a few times when they suddenly came onto the screen. Usually in these films the demons either look really bad or too much like puppets to be taken seriously. While Lawrence has an interesting visual eye he needs to go beyond the look of music videos if he's going to make another film.
The film did have some other redeeming qualities. It was nice how, despite other problems with the screenplay, they didn't try to force a romance on Constantine and Angela. Every once in a while the movie did allow for an amusing moment. For example when Constantine has to dunk Angela in a bathtub to allow her to go into Hell, she asks him if she needs to take her clothes off. He says nothing and when she asks him again, he replies, "I'm thinking." Little scenes like that made an otherwise mediocre film worth sitting through. If "Constantine" had more of these moments it would have been a much better film.
Buy "Constantine" on DVD
Directed by Francis Lawrence
"Constantine," the second comic book movie in less than two months, is a giant, dark mess of a film, but little elements here and there make it a hard movie to hate completely.
Keanu Reeves plays John Constantine, an exorcist who has the ability to see half-angels and half-demons. Since he tried to commit suicide when he was 15, Constantine is doomed to Hell when he dies. To redeem himself in the eyes of God to get into Heaven it is Constantine's job to send as many misbehaving half-breeds back to Hell to redeem himself in the eyes of God to get into Heaven. But he doesn't have much time left because he's diagnosed with a severe form of lung cancer from smoking most of his life. A detective named Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz, "The Mummy") approaches a reluctant Constantine to find out what really happened to her twin sister who committed suicide under mysterious circumstances. Angela believes that her sister, as a "devout Catholic," was forced into the suicide. (Why are they always Catholic in these films?) It is all eventually linked to a newly found religious artifact called the Spear of Destiny, the spear that punctured Christ on the cross.
Part of the problem with the film is the screenplay. Kevin Brodbin and Frank Cappello's screenplay is hard to follow at times and seems written as if only fans of the graphic novel "Hellblazer" were going to go see the movie. One glaring example of this is a scene later on in the film where Constantine tries to put his arms together to form a symbol that has some sort of magical power. It's never established in the film that something would happen if he did that. You see the tattoos on his arm throughout the film, but they never get explained, so what is supposed to be climactic becomes rather anti-climactic. It seems like the screenwriters' task was to try to fit what could have easily been a three-hour movie into two, and cut things just for the sake of cutting.
Another problem was Reeves, although he does a decent job, you can't help but think you have seen this character in another movie, three to be exact. The names of these films are slipping my mind right now. Perhaps if I free my mind it'll come to me later. Weisz does solid work with her two characters and actually manages to play two characters distinctively. For a British actress her American accent isn't bad.
Beyond Weisz's character, most of the rest of the cast don't get much of an explanation beyond their initial introduction. First up on our list of one-dimensional supporting characters we have an alcoholic priest (Pruitt Taylor Vince, "Monster") whose only reason for being an alcoholic is to take away the voices of hell he hears in his head. Next we have a religious relics salesman (Max Baker, "Life or Something Like It"), who's like Constantine's version of Q from the James Bond movies. We also have a nightclub owner (Djimon Hounson, "Biker Boyz") who's a former witch doctor whose clientele are half-breeds. Then there's Constantine's assistant, Chas (Shia LeBeouf, "Holes"), who wants to be like Constantine and talks likes a white guy trying to be "street" (basically the same character he played in "I, Robot.") It would have been nice to see more of these characters throughout the film and their relationship to Constantine, instead of randomly thrown in for plot convenience.
As if there weren't enough characters populating the screen, there are two other characters worth mentioning: the half-angel Gabriel (Tilda Swinton, "Vanilla Sky") and the half-demon Balthazar (Gavin Rossdale, lead singer of Bush). Gabriel is an androgynous being who seems to have resentment towards humans, while Balthazar seems to be acting on murderous orders from the devil himself. Both Swinton and Rossdale do well with their parts, but Rossdale is the real surprise. He has a movie star quality to him and hopefully he'll get better roles in the future.
Visually, the movie conveyed a spiritual version of film noir filmmaking. First time director Francis Lawrence's version of Hell as downtown Los Angeles during rush hour is rather amusing, but a lot of the colors were muddy and bland. The visual look of the demons was definitely cool. They looked scary and creepy, and I probably jumped a few times when they suddenly came onto the screen. Usually in these films the demons either look really bad or too much like puppets to be taken seriously. While Lawrence has an interesting visual eye he needs to go beyond the look of music videos if he's going to make another film.
The film did have some other redeeming qualities. It was nice how, despite other problems with the screenplay, they didn't try to force a romance on Constantine and Angela. Every once in a while the movie did allow for an amusing moment. For example when Constantine has to dunk Angela in a bathtub to allow her to go into Hell, she asks him if she needs to take her clothes off. He says nothing and when she asks him again, he replies, "I'm thinking." Little scenes like that made an otherwise mediocre film worth sitting through. If "Constantine" had more of these moments it would have been a much better film.
Buy "Constantine" on DVD
posted by ScoopOnFilm @ 12:00 PM
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