Good movie that has been to hell and back.

Rating: 8/10 (1 April 2005)

O.k., Keanu Reeves is hardly Oscar winning material but somehow always manages to land some top roles ie The Matrix, Speed and now Constantine. Here he plays the title character from the Hellblazer comics John Constantine who has the ability to see angels and demons that roam the Earth in human form. It's his job to rid the world of all the demons in the hope that the man upstairs will give him redemption so he can get into Heaven. However there is a slight glitch in his plan in the fact that he is a 30 a day smoker since the age of 15, drinks heavily and only cares about number one. When he was a child, he committed suicide to escape the ability that he has but was revived after being declared clinically dead for two minutes. During that time he went down to Hell. All this adds to Constantines' character.
Plot wise, Constantine is fairly easy to understand with Rachel Weisz playing a cop who's investigating her twin sisters' death. She asks Constantine for help as he is the only one who can give her the answers that she needs. While this is going on, there is a far a greater evil lurking which may be tied in with all this.
As with all comic book, or any kind of literary adaptation, there will always be differences between the two mediums. This is something that will add annoyance to fans of the comic as there is bound to be alterations no matter how small, but this is the movies and things will be changed for whatever reason. It would be unfair to totally slate this movie as, from someone who is not a comic book reader, this is a decent enough movie, even if some of the performances are not exactly award winning.
The special effects are of a good quality even if things do appear a bit ropey at times. Constantine flows through smoothly and even though it doesn't live up to the hype generated by the trailers it's a fun a couple of hours.