Product: Constantine [Blu-ray] (2012)
Rating: 3.0
NOT BAD BUT LACKING IN SOURCE MATERIAL
Now I hate to be one of those people that whines about how the movie was not as good as the book, or in this case, the comic book, but I'm going to have to. It's especially frustrating as we just saw Frank Miller's Sin City come out not long after and stay very faithful, even down to the gritty two-color look. I don't have a problem with Keanu Reeves but he simply was not the right guy to play a chain-smoking, run-down, sardonic Englishman that Constantine is supposed to be. I think someone like Gary Oldman would have been a great choice to play Constantine.Keanu does the chain smoking but he looks like a guy who just started smoking yesterday, rather than the wizened, look of someone who actually HAD been chain smoking for years...add to that he does about the WORST fake coughing I've ever heard in my life. The average ten year-old kid can fake a cough better to get out of school than Keanu does in this film.I don't mind the CGI and I think the director Francis lawrence did a pretty good job of NOT getting carried away with too many visual effects. But how does a guy who never directed a feature film before get the reins to a film with this large a budget anyway? While he resisted going overboard with the CGI he couldn't resist in turning what was a pure, very dark horror comic into a Van Helsing meets the Devil action flick. There's more action in the average episode of "This Old House" than there is in an issue of Hellblazer. Hellblazer is NOT an action hero...he's not a hero period. Not even a good guy really and ultimately that's what Lawrence had him become...a pretty boy demon hunter.I won't delve too much into the script although I'd love to know why the Spear of Destiny was buried in the Mexican desert. The film does have a pretty good supporting cast with Rachel Weisz as the cop/psychic object of the devil's search, and Peter Stromare as the devil himself in yet another oddball role he seems born to play.With all that said I'm still going to give it a slightly positive review. I thought the story was pretty well-written although I think the plot was perhaps a bit too grand. The affects were good, particularly those scenes in the wind-blasted desolation of hell. Overall its hit or miss but there's more good than bad.