Product: Constantine [Blu-ray] (2012)
Rating: 3.0
The Middle Ground Review
People have been giving this movie either 5 star or 1 star reviews, but to be honest, the movie cannot be put into either extreme. It's middle of the road action/horror fare.Keanu Reeves has somewhat wooden acting, but anyone who's seen a Keanu Reeves movie will tell you that wooden acting is simply how he does things, and in that respect, this is one of his better depictions of a character since Ted Theodore Logan. His character is one confronted with his own fate and hates everything for it, and anyone who saw the movie must have seen that in Keanu's performance. If you say it was stiff, well, yeah it was a little stiff, but this is not meant to be an award-winning drama. This is an action movie, and the acting always comes off a little stiff in action movies.Some of the other characters and plot devices, I'll admit are a bit cheezy, but no more so than in any other action movie (people who disagree are advised to view any Arnold, Stalone, or Willis movie ever made). So if you're one to toot your horn and scream that the movie was contrived at the top of your lungs, then maybe you should stop to consider that the message the movie was trying to give was not about religion, but rather "battling demons looks cool, and deus ex machina, while contrived, provides for a fun change of pace to an action movie."So in the end don't take this movie for more (or less) than what it is. It's an action film about killing demons starring Keanu Reeves, with decent effects, a pretty good supporting cast, and a pseudo twist ending loosely based on a comic book character. For anyone who's read the comic, you must realize that it isn't exactly bursting with action. In that respect maybe you can see why it deviated so much from the source material.