Neither as Good as I'd Hoped Nor as Bad as I'd Feared

Rating: 5/10 (20 February 2012)

As an on-again, off-again follower of the Vertigo comic this is based upon, I was all geared up to hate it mightily before it had even spun up in the DVD player. With that said, it fares somewhat better than I'd expected. It isn't a raging success story, but it's not a tragic insult to the rich, lengthy source material either. Keanu Reeves is a horrible choice for the lead, no doubt about that - where the funny book Constantine is a complex, witty, bitter but charismatic subculture hero, Keanu's interpretation is as nuanced as a bag of bricks. I don't know how much I can fault the actor for that - after all, he's been playing dress-up with the same character for two decades now - but regardless of where the blame lies, he lacks the unspoken authenticity that role needs to get off the ground. Fortunately, the blow is softened somewhat by a dynamite intro sequence that may as well have been ripped straight from the pages of the comic and a decent, if indulgent, central storyline. With a full-blown war between heaven and hell at its core, it would've been very easy to get overly adventurous with the film's scope, but it wisely maintains a short focal range and that keeps things mostly grounded. It won't be finding a home on anyone's top ten list, and it's not easy to look past Keanu being Keanu (with Shia freaking LaBeouf crammed in as a throwaway sidekick), but the tone is right and the special effects work is a grand success. Not nearly what it could've been, but also not what I feared it would become.