Fine, but will irritate fans of the series

Rating: Null/10 (22 February 2005)

Fans of the series are going to be annoyed at CONSTANTINE, which casts Keanu Reeves in a paradigmatic British "good bloke" kind of role and at times roams rather far afield from "Hellblazer" (Constantine is not known for action, really, nor is he the kind of guy who's going to fit in well in a redemption tale, which is what the movie turns into.) That said, Reeves is not bad, especially as the story kicks into high gear and we see him trying to figure out what's going on: Reeves always does bewilderment well, and we see a lot of that. Unfortunately he's asked to be acerbic and cynical at the start, which is something he's not good at.
Absolute newcomers are probably not going to like it either: I've read reviews from such folk who seem completely lost in the story's byways. It helps to have at least a general familiarity with the Vertigo aesthetic, and it's sort of oddball take on Heaven/Hell/God/Satan/Good/Evil. Probably the ideal audience is somebody like me, who followed some Vertigo series but not "Hellblazer" specifically.
I enjoyed this movie for the most part. It ultimately becomes rather conventional, and that's a problem here and there (the climax is kicked off by as ridiculous a plot machination as I've seen). There's also too much fogginess in the story: the bad guy's plot seemed to depend far too much on luck, for instance. But the effects are spectacular, the mood is nicely grim and downbeat, the trip to the conventional destinations is unusual, there's a lot of interesting Vertigo-type ideas on screen, Constantine is for the most part not much of a superhero, and while the movie ends as a redemption story, it's a complicated sort of one, which I liked. (I thought Constantine's final solution to his problem was incredibly ingenious.) In other words, I liked it despite it's faults, and would cautiously recommend it. I've heard some people call it BLADE crossed with THE EXORCIST, which actually isn't too far off -- whatever you think of "Hellblazzer", if that notion appeals to you you'll like this.