Devilishly boring.

Rating: 4/10 (21 February 2014)

Comic book movies. Today, they are some of the most profitable movies around, with franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider- Man and Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy raking in their millions. Due to the success of these films, many companies want to have a slice of the comic book movie pie and therefore others start to appear, some good (Watchmen) others rubbish (Catwoman, Sin City). This is more on the latter side. While not being completely awful, Constantine is still a below par attempt to cash in on the comic book movie craze, with bad acting, an unoriginal plot and an achingly slow pace to boot.
The plot is that cop Angela Dodson (played by Rachel Weisz) is investigating the suspicious death of her sister Isabel, and releases that it may have a more supernatural explanation. She gains the help of Constantine (played by Keanu Reeves), who has personal experience with the supernatural, as he is a demon hunter. Together, they discover a more sinister plot, which could lead to the apocalypse. The plot here is one of the big problems with the film, as it is blatantly unoriginal, and gets really tedious because of it. It steals from films like Alien, Pitch Black, The Prophecy and End of Days, and doesn't come up with enough original ideas to excuse this, especially due its clear intention as a franchise starter.
It also doesn't help that the movie's pacing kills any sort of enjoyment you might have. For the majority of the running time, the plot is spoon fed to the audience with long, drawn-out exposition which instead of opening up this new world to the audience, making them feel like they've been lectured for 2 hours. This also means that there's very little action, and when it does come, its bland and really lame, with Keanu Reeves repeatedly shooting demons in slow motion. It's also disappointing that even though hell is brought up a lot in the film, it is barely in the film, not even being used as the setting for the climax, making the film feel more underwhelming. It's like this movie wasn't confident enough to show off its world and what it had to offer, so it just talked about it instead, which is an amateur writing mistake (not surprising, considering the writers previous credits include Suburban Commando and The Glimmer Man). This mistake is a more fatal one considering how this movie wants to be a franchise starter, but its tell don't show structure makes it hard for the audience to care about showing more of the world. Even Twilight, with its silly stories, at least showed off more of its world, making it more open to sequels and makes it more deserving as a franchise starter.
Another thing to comment on is the dreadful acting. Keanu Reeves, unsurprisingly is as wooden as ever and Rachel Weisz seems to be more concerned with perfecting her American accent than trying to deliver a great performance. It's such a shame, seeing how the supporting actors, particularly Shia Laboeuf and Tilda Swindon have much more charisma and bring a lot more energy to the film, showing off how much fun they're having in their roles.
The characters are also uninteresting as well, and are very two- dimensional at best. It's funny how the writers gave out so much exposition for the plot, that they couldn't give their characters and sorts of interests or any third dimensions in the process. Sure many of Christopher Nolan's films lack in character but at least make up for it with exciting stories and great set-pieces, something which this movie is sorely absent of. Considering its intention as a franchise starter and its huge budget ($100 million) this is flat out inexcusable, and makes the movie miss its mark completely.
Overall, this is just a failed attempt as a comic book movie franchise, due to its many faults. If you are looking for a good action movie of biblical proportions, watch The Da Vinci Code or The Prophecy, as they are much more fun and are more worthy of your time. Just leave this boring mess to rot and burn in the fires of hell. After taking away two hours of your life, that is the treatment that it deserves.