There's always a catch

Rating: 7/10 (21 February 2005)

When a Mexican finds the Spear of Destiny (aka the Spear of Longinus) amidst ruins, it sets off a chain of events that could lead to a Hell-fueled Armageddon on Earth. Enter John Constantine (Keanu Reeves), freelance demon-hunter, and Los Angeles detective Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz), who are to play roles in the ongoing "battle" between heaven and hell.
Judging Constantine on visuals, style and attitude, it would easily earn a 10. But as we learn in the film, "there's always a catch". The catch is that the story is a bit of a mess. It was problematic enough to earn a 7 out of 10, or a C, and just barely. For much of its length, I was prepared to give it a 6.
Scriptwriters Kevin Brodbin and Frank A. Cappello seem to want to throw in everything, including the kitchen sink and a lot of other water receptacles, and they want to do it without having to explain very much. So the beginning of the film takes us from the Mexican to an exorcism to a woman in a mental hospital to a detective who looks oddly like her, and so on. During all of this, there are numerous ancillary characters. It takes a long time to be told who anyone is, what they're doing, and what their relationship is to any other characters. It doesn't help that this is one of countless films where the dialogue is mixed at about negative 5 to the sound effects' 11, and where actors are encouraged to mumble. You finally learn that the mental patient and the detective who looks too much like her are twins, but it takes awhile to figure it out.
And it's not just the beginning of the film that is like this. Throughout its length, Constantine keeps introducing new characters, settings, subplots and ideas, with nary an explanation for any of them. Many you eventually figure out, and that led me to believing that I might enjoy the film more on a second viewing, now that I have a half-completed scribbly score card, but I can't guarantee that. There were far too many characters who could have been excised (and probably exorcised) with no ill effect.
The production design, though incredibly attractive and intriguing, is also extremely dense and bizarre but unexplained. Why was Constantine living in a bowling alley? Was he living in a bowling alley, or did he or his friend just have an office there? I couldn't tell for sure. What were all of those odd jars of stuff hanging from the ceiling? What was the deal with the nightclub, anyway? What was all of that stuff they had stashed in the back? What was the deal with the tattoos and the other occurrences of those symbols? No one ever attempts to explain any of this stuff. It's just there and seems important to the story but we're not told very much about it. The film plays a bit like a joke that you're not in on. Like eavesdropping on the middle of a conversation from a group of people in turmoil, where you needed to hear the beginning to put the delectable gossip into context.
I would guess that the problem is that Constantine is based on the Hellblazer comic books, which are already up to number 200-something. John Constantine is a character with an extensive mythology surrounding him. I'm sure a lot of it is fascinating. Unfortunately, I've never read the comic so I'm not familiar with the mythology, and the film isn't about to explain it to me; it thinks I should know what everything means already. Films, at least those that aren't later entries in a series, should not have prerequisites for understanding.
From what I could gather, the basic scenario in the Hellblazer universe is that Heaven and Hell exist as parallel worlds to the universe that most humans know. Full-fledged angels and demons are not supposed to directly interfere with humans, but there are "half-breeds" that can exist in our world and indirectly try to influence events. The basic idea is that God and Satan have a sort of wager going to see who can get more souls. Like a metaphysical game of poker. Occasionally, demons cross over into our world, like interdimensional illegal aliens, and John Constantine acts as a sort of superhero Immigration and Naturalization Service agent with a bad attitude. In the film, beings are crossing over who don't usually, and it's portentous of doom. Much of the latter half of Constantine starts to closely resemble the Prophecy films starring Christopher Walken. The problem with that is that I like the Prophecy films a lot better. They have good stories.
It also didn't help much when I read some of the comments from the filmmakers that resulted from their promo press junkets--for example, in Fangoria #240. Apparently, the stuff that looks like hell in the film--the mostly reddish, very hot, nuclear-fallout-wind-with-demons-chasing-you-and-trying-to-eat-you stuff is supposed to be Heaven. That didn't make sense to me, and not surprisingly, no one bothered to explain why that's supposed to be heaven. I also don't remember anyone mentioning that in the film, but admittedly, I couldn't make out some dialogue. I don't mind heaven looking that way, but when it's so unusual--basically the opposite of what we'd expect, it seems to deserve some explanation.
Still, Constantine is worth a watch for the fantastic visuals and for individual scenes--most of which are very good. Some are even breathtaking, like the opening where the Mexican is hit by a car. Or the beautiful exorcism scene that follows. The film deals with a lot of serious subject matter. It's very visceral. Occasionally it's funny and a bit campy. It has great effects. Reeves and Weisz turn in excellent performances. It's just a shame that director Francis Lawrence didn't ensure that it would make more sense and have more significance as a whole.