Product: Constantine [Blu-ray] (2012)
Rating: 2.0
SAVED BY SWINTON, WEISZ, AND HOUNSOU.
Constantine is not as entertaining as Hellboy, but it does have several great actors from Britain and America including Rachel Weisz(Sunshine), Tilda Swinton(The Deep End, Orlando), and last year's Oscar nominated Djimon Hounsou(In America). It's obvious that Keanu Reeves needed a commercial hit again since the completion of The Matrix series, but he's not right for this gig. He's too good looking in this movie, and if he had done some serious transformation like Christian Bale(The Machinist), he probably would be more convincing. Oh well, he's definitely got 5 times more fans and bankability than Bale, even if he's a less sophisticated actor.This film didn't strike me as horror experience, it's more of a religion/spiritual thriller. In the beginning, we get to see Reeves perform an exorcism on a girl who was posessed by a demon that escaped Hell, and it was his "job" to capture and deport it back to The Other Dimension. It was an impressive visual, even if the girl was not Linda Blair. From that moment on, the film headed on a multi-plot direction that was kind of confusing. As for the structure of Hell and how someone will be rejected by Heaven(also known as The Other Side), it's not very acurate. Reeve's character is someone who attempted suicide at an early age, because he couldn't take it anymore dued to his overwhelming ability(gift) to see through other dimensions. He came back, and he's not eligible to go to Heaven, but he intended to regain credibility by fighting against Hell. During his journey, he encounters Rachel Weisz(playing a dual role of twins), whose sister committed suicide and she was trying to unsolve her mysterious death, since she knew that she didn't deliberately killed herself. Reeves was the only person to assist her to dig into the surface of things. Along the way, there are other characters they come across, including Reeves' sidekick(a psychic). A mysterious Archangel played by the underused Tilda Swinton who managed to steal scenes with every minute of the screen time. A Witch Doctor who had the access to both Heaven and Hell played by the very intense Djimon Hounsou, he was so good that Keanu Reeves looked like a supporting role when they are in a scene together. Throughout the rest of this movie, Reeves and Weisz were attacked by demons and and he had to decent to Hell to investigate things, but we don't really get to know who the real mastermind of the plot to take ove the world is until the very end.The story was kind of weak, but it's got some good visuals consistently. Keanu Reeves didn't get to do very much action scenes like he did in The Matrix. I was very surprised that they could get Tilda Swinton to be in this movie, but it's too bad that she didn't even have more than 10 minutes of screentime.