A major disappointment.

Rating: 3/10 (8 February 2005)

I saw a press screening of Constantine a few nights ago in a screening room up here in Seattle and I have to say that the movie was a letdown. It tries to be a mixture of horror, suspends and action but it just ends up very incoherent in it's narrative and you just lose patience with it after while. Keanu Reeves is an OK actor but he's just going through the motions here and it shows by the glaring similarities it has to his work in the Matrix movies. It leaves you wondering on why he's even in the film in the first place because his character really adds nothing to the story other than the ridiculous climax where he turns the movie into a poor Matrix montage with him shooting up a hospital full of demons. Rachel Weisz on the other hand manages to give a very strong and realistic performance that could been used in a much better and serious film and Djmon Hounsou is decent in a glorified cameo that really does not use his talents to it's full potential. Shia LaBeouf is doing his lame and very unfunny slapstick to the hill and Satan himself looked like he just came from a lounge act in Vegas. The worse served by all of this is Tilda Swinton, who perhaps has the worse character in the entire film. A character that is not in the movie much in the first place but has a significant role in derailing the last act of the film with a plot twist that absolutely makes no sense at all. I do have to say that the special effects were pretty good and the hell dimension had it's charm but nether of them can compensate for a bad script that not only has some really bad dialog that makes some of the scenes in the film unintentional funny but has a plot development that makes no sense what so ever and has nothing to do with the story as a whole.
My heart goes out to Rachel Weisz, Djmon Hounsou and to a lesser degree Tilda Swinton for at least giving good performances that respect the audience but regardless of their grand efforts, this still remains a Keanu Reeves film and it's not very good.