April 10, 2005
Sometimes you head to the cinema expecting a treat and get a turkey. And sometimes there are films like Constantine, the comic-book derived supernatural-action-thriller starring Keanu Reeves….
John Constantine (Reeves) has a gift – or is it a curse? From a kid he’s been able to spot the demons that hide in human shape. And now he’s a dark crusader sending them back to hell with an arsenal of holy gadgets. Only, Constantine ain’t no saint. Cynical, world-weary and killing himself with a chain-smoking habit, he’s heading straight to hell too. Why? For committing suicide to escape his gift. Revived after only a few minutes, he’s now damned - unless he can save enough souls to buy himself a place in Heaven. And when he meets faith-shaken cop Rachel Weisz, Constantine sees a chance to tip the scales. All hell’s about to break loose, you see, and Constantine isn’t going to pass that one up.
Sound like a turkey? Well, amazingly it isn’t. Against all the odds its actually pretty darn good. Clever, witty and chock-full of scares and thrills, Constantine is a slickly directed movie that delivers on almost every level. It’s even funny – mostly deliberately. How else could it get away with having an angel called Gabriel (Tilda Swinton), a hissably horrid Satan (Peter Stormare) and a slickly-suited uber-devil without our rolling our eyes heavenward? Grabbing you from the start, Constantine sucks you into its own preposterousness – thanks to some excellent special effects and some genuinely spooky Exorcist-style shocks and jumps.
While it plays fast and loose with Christian theology and the Bible (nothing new there), it’s still an intelligent thriller, dealing head-on with forgiveness, salvation, heaven and hell. Shock-horror, a popcorn movie that makes you think! And that’s not all that separates this sheep from the goats of other comic book capers. Unlike the Spidermans, Hellboys and X-Mens, glutted on computer images, Constantine uses them sparingly but to mostly stunning effect. The early-on capture of a devil in a mirror is a cracker and the depictions of hell and its minions (always a tough one) stay the scary side of cliché. And music-vid director Francis Lawrence lends proceedings a visual panache the material almost doesn’t deserve - his camera gliding like an angel and prowling like the devil. It makes you want to forgive the occasional incoherence of the plot.
Reeves gives a knowing and well-judged performance as the haggard anti-hero. More tooled up than toned up, Constantine is no Neo-style Matrix saviour – more a Clint Eastwood avenger with sharp one-liners. Rachel Weisz too makes the most of her twin roles – as the cop and her ill-fated sister.
Constantine achieves its scares and thrills with the minimum of gore and is surprisingly chaste too. Which just goes to show how different this one is. Recommended.
John Constantine (Reeves) has a gift – or is it a curse? From a kid he’s been able to spot the demons that hide in human shape. And now he’s a dark crusader sending them back to hell with an arsenal of holy gadgets. Only, Constantine ain’t no saint. Cynical, world-weary and killing himself with a chain-smoking habit, he’s heading straight to hell too. Why? For committing suicide to escape his gift. Revived after only a few minutes, he’s now damned - unless he can save enough souls to buy himself a place in Heaven. And when he meets faith-shaken cop Rachel Weisz, Constantine sees a chance to tip the scales. All hell’s about to break loose, you see, and Constantine isn’t going to pass that one up.
Sound like a turkey? Well, amazingly it isn’t. Against all the odds its actually pretty darn good. Clever, witty and chock-full of scares and thrills, Constantine is a slickly directed movie that delivers on almost every level. It’s even funny – mostly deliberately. How else could it get away with having an angel called Gabriel (Tilda Swinton), a hissably horrid Satan (Peter Stormare) and a slickly-suited uber-devil without our rolling our eyes heavenward? Grabbing you from the start, Constantine sucks you into its own preposterousness – thanks to some excellent special effects and some genuinely spooky Exorcist-style shocks and jumps.
While it plays fast and loose with Christian theology and the Bible (nothing new there), it’s still an intelligent thriller, dealing head-on with forgiveness, salvation, heaven and hell. Shock-horror, a popcorn movie that makes you think! And that’s not all that separates this sheep from the goats of other comic book capers. Unlike the Spidermans, Hellboys and X-Mens, glutted on computer images, Constantine uses them sparingly but to mostly stunning effect. The early-on capture of a devil in a mirror is a cracker and the depictions of hell and its minions (always a tough one) stay the scary side of cliché. And music-vid director Francis Lawrence lends proceedings a visual panache the material almost doesn’t deserve - his camera gliding like an angel and prowling like the devil. It makes you want to forgive the occasional incoherence of the plot.
Reeves gives a knowing and well-judged performance as the haggard anti-hero. More tooled up than toned up, Constantine is no Neo-style Matrix saviour – more a Clint Eastwood avenger with sharp one-liners. Rachel Weisz too makes the most of her twin roles – as the cop and her ill-fated sister.
Constantine achieves its scares and thrills with the minimum of gore and is surprisingly chaste too. Which just goes to show how different this one is. Recommended.