Review of Constantine (2005) by Dzimas — 28 Dec 2021

Is it just me, or is this film a whole lot like Night Watch from the year before. It is supposedly based on a graphic novel, Hellblazer, but the premise and much of the visual effects seem too much like Timur Bekmambetov's crazy movie that was nominated for Best Foreign Language Picture. Maybe Timur drew from the same source material. In any case, Timur's movie is infinitely better than this grossly over the top supernatural action movie, which probably would have benefited from having Nicholas Cage, and not Keanu Reeves, in the title role. At least, Nic has experience in this type of movie.

More perplexing is why Tilda Swinton or Rachel Weisz wanted any part of it. Maybe it looked better on paper. Translated to the screen it becomes an orgy of demonic images strewn together with all the subtlety of someone who makes music videos. Oh wait, that's what Francis Lawrence does. From the get-go, we are dragged into this infernal drama with little in the way of tension or suspense. You know there is going to be hell to pay, the only question is what the body count will be. Keanu looks completely out of place in this movie, as he tries to draw upon a world-weary look of someone who has had to fight demons all his life. He never manages to capture it. The gelatinous white make-up and black eyes don't help either. Rachel is better, just because she is a better actor, but even she struggles to come up with the right expressions for her mixture of surprise and acceptance as the eventual bride of Lucifer. I would attach a spoiler alert but it is so obvious, I don't think anyone will be upset. Besides, if you haven't seen this movie by now, you probably shouldn't even bother.

What got me is all the emphasis on suicide and the eternal damnation one must face for taking one's own life. Surely if God is merciful, he would have a soft spot for someone who takes his or her own life. No, we are dealing with old world Catholicism here, when suicide victims were buried outside the church walls, as if they might be a bad influence even in death.

In Alan Moore's dark world there is no mercy at all, for the living or the dead, with rogue angels like Gabriel making pacts with the devil to give mortals a taste of hell on earth. I suppose in that sense, Lawrence does capture the essence of the graphic novel, but who says you have to be loyal to the story, especially when it is so bad to begin with.

Night Watch did a much better job of capturing the sense of an uneasy balance between dark and light and how easily it can be upset, and it did so on a much smaller budget - 1.5 million as opposed to 100 million. No wonder Hollywood eventually signed Timur to do Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Take my advice, watch Night Watch and Day Watch instead.