Disappointing: Dull Dialogue, Hoakey, with a Dearth of Action

Rating: 3/10 (18 March 2005)

I'm a big fan of Devil's Advocate as well as most films within the religious horror/action genre, and this film is the suckiest serious attempt to make such a flick that I can recall. Sure it has good special effects here and there, but special effects have become so overrated these days. The fact is that it is filled with extremely hoaky and unbelievable spells, boring dialogue, and sucky acting. I like Keanu in some films, but he was boring in this one. He was as lifeless as a stone. I think he was supposed to be some sort of bitter, sarcastic, Dennis Leary type character, but his acting skills were unable to pull off such a character. In the film, Satan looks like a ridiculous pimp and is a pathetic joke. Occasionally characters will go to Hell and return with steam on them from their horrific journey, but the film doesn't even show us half of these journeys to Hell. So you finally think that something exciting is going to happen besides the endless boring dialogue and you are rewarded by mere steam coming off of a body and no vision of Hell or the monsters. They probably decided to not show us every time the characters went to Hell because it cost too much, well they should have scrounged up some more money to end the monotony of the dialogue. Occasionally, you see Hell, but very rarely. The whole plot is basically unoriginal. You have a Heaven and a Hell and the Earth is neutral ground between the two dimensions where angels and demons can influence events, but only to a certain extent. Who cares? There's nothing original about that. The characterization was underdeveloped, except for maybe constantine, who was acted poorly anyway. Overall, the film is hoakey (just wait for the spells and such), strains belief, is unoriginal, has boring dialogue, not much action, and basically sucks. The only positive spots are that some of the special effects and the cineamatography looks cool, and there is a little bit of character development and spats of decent acting, but just not enough to carry a film so big budget and hyped as this one.