Product: Constantine [Blu-ray] (2012)
Rating: 3.0
Beware next time you have a bath, you might drop in on Hell
I was actually really looking forward to seeing this movie. I loved the poster - it's not totally obvious first time round that Keanu actually appears in it. I'm also a big fan of the lovely Keanu. I'd never previously heard of the comic.I was kinda disappointed by the movie, and also found it really boring. It's got some cool effects, it's got a good cast, but nothing much happened for me. Keanu is great, and I was surprised I didn't find the continuous smoking a turn off, as I would normally. I'm sorry, I would not date a guy who smoked. But despite the constant chain-smoking throughout the first half of the movie, by the time the second half hits, he's too busy fighting demons to light up a cigarette.I liked Rachel Weiz's character in this, although boy, would I like to pluck her eyebrows for her!!! I wasn't so sure about the Keanu/Rachel pair up again, after what happened with Chain Reaction, but they didn't do too bad. There's no chemistry though. Also, Rachel makes a major fashion boo boo in this - she wears a white shirt with a black bra under through most of the movie. And then promptly gets wet/dunked in a bath etc. Deliberate? Could she not have worn a white bra? It was really Rachel in the scene where her character flies backwards through the building. This was achieved by strapping her to a chair on a track and moving the chair back really quickly. The surrounding office was later generated on computer to achieve the scene. She also went to the morgue as a part of the research into her character. A life-size replica of Rachel was made and used as the corpse of Angela Dodson's twin sister Isabel who committed a suicide.I've read quite a few of the press articles about this, and Gavin Rossdale (who's married to Gwen Stefani, for people who don't know) always seem to be chattering away about the movie. He hardly appears in it! He appears for a couple of scenes and that's about it! Satan appears in it for longer than him. A hard day's work that was!Apparently, after the credits, there's an epilogue to the action of the movie, with Constantine leaving his lighter on a gravestone, whereupon an angel appears. Of course, seeing it in the cinema, no one stays past the first name appearing on the credits, so I'll no doubt catch that bit on DVD. (There are no opening credits by the way, only the company logos, and the title, for people who tend to skip past the start credits on DVDs, like me.)The logos for Warner Bros, Village Roadshow Pictures, and The Donner's Company, all appear, smoulder and crumble in the hell setting.I thought the whole Hell scenes were done really well, quite a different take on normal scenes. Actually the only Hell scenes I can think of from other films is Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey! :) Or the Matrix movies, those were kinda hell-ish. Ooops, I didn't mean that! I like those!In the comic book "Hellblazer" on which the movie is based, the character of John Constantine is from Liverpool. In the movie, the character is from Los Angeles. It is widely believed that the character of John Constantine was changed to an American so that Keanu Reeves could play the role. The truth is the original script retained his nationality but got no response from producers. So the writer changed him to an American and the script quickly gained attention. Although the movie Constantine is based on the comic book Hellblazer, the movie title was changed because it was too similar to Hellraiser. The comic book itself was actually meant to be called Hellraiser, but Clive Barker came up with the title first.The character of Father Hennessy is a mixture of three of Constantine's allies from the comic book. They are Nige Archer who was a psychic, Ric the Vic who was a priest, and Header who was a portly substance abuser. And, like Hennessy, all are killed for being associated with Constantine.The tattoo on constantine's arms is the alchemical symbol of the Red King, which was worn (by him) for protection. It is "the fire triangle with three radiating arrows below represents the "Perfect Red King," the Sulfur of the Philosophers."The "Spear of Destiny" prop is the same one as used in Hellboy. I have to admit I'd never previously heard of the spear used to kill Christ on the cross called by this before. I liked Stigmata, and there's a lot of religious imagery in that, but I don't think you're supposed to get most of the religious stuff in this. It's very different.A character named Ellie, who was a demon Constantine dealt with early on, was completely cut from the film. Francis Lawrence stated that she was left on the cutting room floor because he wanted Constantine to be completely alone when he meets Angela. He also stated that an unrated DVD would contain Ellie's scenes. Ellie was played by Michelle Mognahan.I'm still not sure what to think about this movie, it's one of those movies that doesn't know quite what it's supposed to be, and relies heavily on religious imagery. It was just OK, I guess. I reckon this will get a few bad reviews, simply because people won't 'get' it. I got the feeling that the film was also trying to portray that everything you know about religion is wrong.Oh, and if you're a fan of the comic book, you know you're going to probably hate this out of loyalty to the comic book, so it's probably best not to.