Product: Constantine [Blu-ray] (2012)
Rating: 3.0
Not for comic fans, but decent.
I'm sorry, for the great job that was done on special effects and the ravaged story that was originally told in the Hellblazer comic book series, this movie could have still been better if not for the completely awkward and based solely on "what Hollywood wanted" casting. Keanu Reeves has done some decent work in a few of the movies I've seen, but he was not the right guy for the part of John Constantine, nor was Shia Lebeouf the right guy for the part of Chaz Kramer.The character of John Constantine, in the comics, is a weathered englishman with a horrible smoking habit who incurs the wrath of heaven, hell and earth alike with his efforts to protect the planet and in most cases, himself. In my humble opinion, the right guy for this movie would likely have been James Marsters, Spike from the Buffy TV Series. The character of Chaz, again, in the comics, is an old friend of Johns that has been through the wars with him, and most of the time not without putting up a fight of his own not to be involved. So having this young kid hanging on the coattails of the Hellblazer and wanting to learn the tricks of the trade was simply horrifying to the fans of the comic series.The movie itself was nicely done, Rachel Weisz and Tilda Swinton were both great in this as were all the peripheral people who helped make the movie an enjoyable is not somewhat tedious (for comic fans hoping for something closer to the comic) watch.And please don't misunderstand, I'm not a Keanu hater, nor do I dislike Shia, his Greatest Game Ever Played was a great movie, it's just here, in this particular instance, I think that Hollywood should have tried a little harder to keep to the formula that made the comic such a success and they could only have done that with a slightly different cast.If you see it, you'll enjoy it, the flaws are pretty apparent, but it still rates a watch, although I have yet to see it a second time.