Review of Constantine (2005) by Ricardos. — 03 Sep 2005

This movie could have been much better. Just cutting out the whole section about the little guy that lived in the bowling alley would greatly reduce the 'supernatural gobbledegook' one critic mentioned.

And the dialog soundtrack, as noted by a user critic, is often unintelligible. There's an internal conflict between the tone of the movie (so heavy and serious and dark) and some of the imagery used--like Constantine firing gold bullets at demons from a gold shotgun welded to a gold crucifix.

In these scenes I felt I was watching an episode of Angel that was taking itself too seriously. Cutting out some of this stereotypical demon stuff would work fine, since as many critics note, and I agree, the plot is incomprehensible and therefore meaningless, and the high points of the film are the the photography and gothic atmosphere.

I thought the four main actors were good: the exorcist (Keanu), the cop (Rachel), Gabriel and Lucifer. In the end, I gave it a 6 because I couldn't give it a 5.5; I'm generally a sucker for this type of movie, so the critics 5 is probably more accurate.

Its a shame that in this genre there are so few good movies.