Product: Constantine [Blu-ray] (2012)
Rating: 2.0
Mediocre film, total betrayal of the source material
First of all, let me say that there have been some truly excellent and insightful reviews posted on this film here.Second of all, this is yet another example (like the execrable Revelations mini) of Hollywood's inability to shake the dime-store Catholic folklore of the Exorcist and the Omen. Hollywood doesn't undertand religion, nevermind the Occult. And the Hellblazer comics are about the occult, black magic and neo-Paganism. Perhaps Hollywood didn't think America was ready for that, but more likely the hacks who write this kind of crap can't wrap their shrivelled brains around it. Hellblazer's universe- excuse me, Constantine's universe- is spitefully amoral and unconcerned with sin and redemption and all the other hand-me-down theology that we are forced to sit through in equally terrible movies like the Order and Lost Souls. The Hellblazer comics are about people and non-people misusing their powers to bad ends, and the stories usually have messy, inconclusive finishes. One of my favorites was when Constantine, who was haunted by an murdered ex-girlfriend, punished her killer by loading him up on LSD and locking him in a box with a rotting corpse. This nonsense about running around with a shotgun shaped like a crucifix and loaded with shells filled with holy water would have made the real Constantine die of laughter. It surely will make Hellblazer fans daydream about filling shotguns of their own and booking a flight to La-La land...Thirdly, the cast is mostly excellent but has nothing to do. Reeves is a good physical actor- it just all falls apart when he opens his mouth. He wisely underplays his dialog and the writers wisely don't give him much. I just wish they gave him a dye job. Actually I wish they gave Clive Owen a dye job and had him play the lead, but alas, Hollywood cares little about my wishes. Tilda Swinton is wasted- a stock British baddie so beloved of talentless Tinseltown hacks. Her storyline makes not even a lick of sense and when it is "resolved", you will scratch your head and say "what the hell?". Rachel Weisz is her usual charming self, but doesn't seem to know what to do with the convoluted storyline. Gavin Rossdale is very handsome and dashing and his character is a complete waste of space and does nothing to advance the story. Peter Stormare supplies some much needed comic relief in his role as Truman Capote playing Satan, but his dialog is terrible and the whole cosmology of the story is such a slap in the face to Hellblazer readers by the time he shows up you won't care. The rest of the performances are serviceable.Giving credit where it's due, the direction and cinematography are excellent, but the script, the script....This is a throwback to the bad old days of comic book adaptions when it was painfully clear that the film-makers had contempt for the source material and just made up their own stupid story. Perhaps the success of more faithful adaptations will change their minds.