Oops they did it again

Rating: 5/10 (11 April 2005)

Oh dear, its like they took the worst parts of Men In Black and The League Of Gentleman and came up with this tripe. Don't get me wrong if your not ahead of the game in realising some of the greatest stories are graphic novels (and that they should make excellent films easily, as after all, they have already done the 'graphic' and the 'novel' part) then you should be entertained watching this film. If your like me, unfortunate enough to have enjoyed Constantine before he hit the big screen, you will leave disappointed.
This was always going to be one of the harder graphic novels to convert to film, as one of the key features to the suspense was you never knew what old John boy was capable of, you just knew not to mess with the *cough* Keanu *cough* I mean man. This leads nicer than a holy shepherd into my main gripe with the film, its been Americanized. Making something Americanized may be a good thing if I trademark the phrase, as sadly this is becoming an all to common phenomenon, but if your just a lover of film this is becoming the most blasphemous of dirty words. Once again we see a fantastic British story from British Writers shifted over the water and this time we are not even given the good grace of casting a Brit in the lead role, John has applied for his visa and has left Blighty. Also Like The League Of Gentleman an American sidekick worms his way into the story, though it looks like higher powers did step in as it seemed most of his scenes were cut.
The film also departs pretty conclusively from the original Hellblazer story's with John now running round with a gun straight out of MiB and basically kicking ass, instead of what I firmly believe would have made this the rival to Sin City by sticking with the witty and clever John who outsmarted his enemies. If they'd have stuck with this they could have put their SFX budget to much better use as what we do get is pretty much pomp and fanfare rather than contributing anything to the story.
It should get 0 out of 10 as the fact Hollywood have now made this means we wont get a decent English remake for many years if at all. End of the day it boils down to a watchable 6 out of 10, only because I'm a CG student so have a weak spot for cool SFX.