Keanu Reeves leaves the special yellow short-bus of acting

Rating: 6/10 (28 August 2006)

This is an almost great movie. The world below versus the world above is always a good topic for a movie-if you do it right. Keanu Reeves has almost learned how to act. This is a good idea for a leading man. Keanu is a weathered and sickened extra-spiritual crime-fighter who can see through not only lousy alibis, not only through walls like superman, but can see through the impermeable walls between life and death-and between salvation and damnation. He is Superman times two. Imagine that. He is Superman with warts and all--spiritually. What a great fricken idea! A science fiction movie where all heaven and earth may be torn asunder. Your soul, dear viewer, is thrown onto-gambled- on the roulette wheel of all creation. There's a screenplay! Then there's Tilda Swinton-a miraculous actress-playing angel Gabriel-who tells Constantine: He's F***ked for all eternity! This is real solid journey into story-telling that transforms hell into Earth, and Earth into hell, and churns your stomach at every turn. Peter Stormare as The Devil is intensely vile. His performance is just stark-raving outstanding. All of this movie stretches your capacity to comprehend its sick intelligence and dire beauty. It is a descent into hell. You the viewer barely escape its awful world-view. It has a greatness, but an awful spiritual desolation. As I said: Tilda Swinton is a beautiful artist, as are all the actors in this sickly fascinating fable of spirit and damnation. It is a gigantic creation of weird reality which cannot be easily shaken off. I think Keanu Reeves has finally grown up as an actor. That is not a small thing.