Product: Constantine [Blu-ray] (2012)
Rating: 1.0
Really pretty bad.
Seriously mishandled horror thriller that had some of its chips in the right place but lacks the showmanship to pull it off. Keanu Reeves is a charismatic actor but his performance here misses the mark completely and noises dives into a brick wall. His performance lacks the presence that the character needs to make this story fly and that's a dangerous thing considering the fact that he's the lead in the film. The story itself makes no sense what so ever and the direction by Frances Lawrence is amateurish to say the least. By hearing the audio commentary by him on the DVD is to here a filmmaker who knows that he was in way over his head in directing this film and it shows by his bad decision making and his clear misunderstanding on what the movie really needed by his lack of experience. He copies more than he originates and lacks the understanding to know how to incorporate what he copied. Another factor that made this movie fail is the screenplay, that had no idea on what it was trying to say. It says one thing and then does a complete 360 degrees and does something completely different. It tries to be intelligent but can't hide the fact that it's really trying to make a supernatural dirty harry film that lacks brains competence, and good writing. Its was supposed to be another Keanu Reeves franchise but unfortunately it makes the last two really bad matrix movies look like cinematic art.There are some good performances in this film that does try to respect the audience, and that's manly from Rachel Weisz (The Shape of Things, The Constant Gardener) who gives the only real and strong performance in the entire film. Her performance is way too good for this film, that's how powerful an actress she is and it deserved better than this. The next good performance belongs to Peter Stormare (Fargo, The Brothers Grim) whose interpretation of the devil is pretty inventive but he's only in the last eight minutes in the film.What a shame that this movie could not have been any better because it has some potential especially with the stellar performances of Rachel Weisz and Peter Stormare but with a director who was in over his head and a screenplay that had no idea on what it was doing, it's no surprise on why this movie turn out this bad.