Rachel Weisz is great but the movie just does not live up to it.

Rating: 1/10 (28 June 2005)

Horribly written and poorly directed horror movie that takes the source material of the comic book that it's based on (The excellent Hellblazer) and literally destroys it with a script that is so badly written that some of the dialog will make you grunt when you hear it and plot points that has nothing to do with the story at all. The story itself make absolutely no sense because it says one thing and contradicts itself latter with another, so you really have no idea on what is going on from time to time. Some characters serve no purpose what so ever like Constantine's kid sidekick who is as annoying as they come and the angel Gabriel, who is involved in one of the stupidest plot revelations to come out in recent cinema. A revelation that turns this movie's second half into a bad joke. The direction by first time director Frances Lawrence is pretty bad because instead of trying to help the story along, he just resorts to copying what was done before in order to get an effect and relying too heavily on the special effects to tell its story. You can see the influence the movie "Seven" had on him because of the way the lighting is done in some scenes but what he forgets is the fact that "Seven" had a compelling story that scared and held you in your seat until it's shocking climax while this movie will have you thinking on why so much had gone wrong with it in the first place. Acting wise, I will have to join the majority in praising Rachel Weisz for her performance because with out it, the movie would have been a bigger disaster than it is. Rachel Weisz give too much to this film with her performance and gets too little from it. Her performance literally keeps this movie from going under its own stupidly and she does make you think about her character as a real human being who is going though a crises of faith and a corrosion of the soul. She's so good in fact that she makes you almost forgive this movie but unfortunately for her and the people paying to see it, she is the only actor who is able to rise above the bad script and lousy direction to give a compelling performance. Keanu Reeves, who plays the title character of John Constantine is a decent actor when he is motivated but he looks like he's on some kind of drug in this film and does not come a cross well in his role. You don't really believe his character at all by the way Keanu plays him and the movie loses credibility because of it. You can't blame him for his lack of interest because of how bad the script is but he could have done better or they could have gotten a better actor to play the character instead.
I suggest you see this film for Rachel Weisz's better what this film deserved performance only because the only good thing this film really has.