Product: Constantine [Blu-ray] (2012)
Rating: 3.0
Now that they have made a movie about Constantine can we have our Hellblazer back?
Constantine was an unusual character for a comic book, which explains why the DC/Vertigo comic book "Hellblazer" was rather unusual, so it is not surprising that this 2005 film is a bit different as well. However, "Hellblazer" fans may well find the changes in the character to outweigh the fact John Constantine has been brought to the big screen and be disappointed. But then they already know that from having seen director Francis Lawrence's movie in the theater. What are left are those who never read "Swamp Thing" or "Hellblazer" and are drawn by Kenau Reeves being in the film to check out the DVD.Basically, what those viewers need to know about the hero is as follows. John Constantine became involved with the occult when he was a youngster, and has always had a problem in that he was never really as good as he thought that he was. Being cocky and brash works well when you are making deals with the minions of Hell, but can be problematic when you are trying to exorcize demons from little girls. But Constantine can do magic, although he usually exaggerates what he is actually capable of doing and the legends about him are more impressive than his actual accomplishments. He also happens to be dying of lung cancer, so whatever he is going to do in this world he has to ge done relatively soon.The tagline for "Constantine" encapsulates the characters situation as: "Hell wants him. Heaven won't take him. Earth needs him." We eventually get a glimpse of Hell, which is, visually at least, an ongoing nuclear firestorm that constitutes a memorable modern version of Dante's Inferno, but for most of this film Hell is in the shadows. Constantine (Reeves) has been busy sending half-demons back to Hell when he is not busy smoking himself to death, but now full demons are showing up on earth. This is a violation of the agreement between God and Lucifer, so something big and bad is brewing. The focal point for Constantine's investigation is the sudden suicide ofa mental patient, whose twince sister, Angela (Rachel Weisz), is a police detective (andt therefore a professional realist who will have trouble believing what Constantine has to say)."Constantine" is more of a horror film than a comic book film, even with the set-up of the title character as something of a superhero. Cinematically it is clearly going for more of a sense of film noir than we normally get in either genre, which is an interesting and effective visual style (previously Lawrence had done only music videos). Unfortunately, the characters and plot are not up to the images (this is another movie where the best special effects pretty much show up in the trailer). The problem may well be not just that viewers have to be brought up to speed on the character of Constantine in a way that is unnecessary with the first rank comic book heroes such as Batman and Spider-Man, but that you have to have more of an appreciation for Catholic theology than you get from having read "The Da Vinci Code." The again, the Bible tends to see that great battle in terms of black and white, while the world of Constantine is pretty much gray (with blood red splatters). After all, the angelic Gabriel (Tilda Swinton) does not seem particularly nice for a heavenly being (which gets us back to your understanding of Catholic theology) and not that different from Balthazar (Gavin Rossdale).Then again the problem could be as simple as the casting of Reeves as the reluctant hero dealing with his curse. Reeves has a definite look in this film, but it is not the look of John Constantine. More importantly, the character is too different from the one in the comic book. Granted, you have to have read "Hellblazer" to know that, but I am here to argue that the caustic S.O.B. of the comic book would work better in this storyline than what Reeves provides, especially when Satan himself (Peter Stormare) shows up for a chat. Whether he intended to or not, the way Reeves plays Constantine is just too much like Neo in "The Matrix," which is wrong on several key levels. Still, given the visual strengths of the production and the way Keeves wants to go with the character maybe the greatest fault with this movie lies with the basic story that Kevin Brodbin came up with (Brodbin and Frank Cappello did the screenplay) from the comic books written by Jamie Delano and Garth Ennis. There should have been a better way of making this all work.