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Okay, let’s have a moment of honesty here. I knew this movie was going to be bad even before putting it into the DVD player. It had at least one strike against it, namely, Keanu Reeves. But not even that advance knowledge could prepare me for the Sheer and Utter Wretchedness that was Constantine. Generally, I enjoy comic book movies, so I though there would be some redeeming value. Oh, how wrong I was.
Here’s the short story: John Constantine is a guy who is destined to go to hell because he attempted suicide when he was a kid. Even though he didn’t succeed. Yeah. Moving on. He’s attempting to redeem his soul by battling the forces of darkness, demons, that kind of thing. He’s going to need some time to do this, but he just found out he has terminal cancer, likely because he’s a freaking chain smoker, so enough with the ciggies already. He meets Rachel Weisz, whose twin sister just killed herself even though she thinks it was a murder. Wanna Be Hot Bad Guy Djimon Hounsou is barely in the movie and when he is, he’s completely inexplicable. Stuff happens. I’m actually not 100% sure of the plot, because it just got buried under weird special effects and Keanu Reeves’ dubious acting skills. Suffice it to say, I don’t think I’ll be completely submerging myself in a bathtub in the near future for fear of being transported to Hell.
Anyway, the Devil eventually gives Constantine a reprieve from the cancer and I assume he goes on to battle the Bad Guys using his Holy Shotgun (which was not NEARLY as cool as I was hoping, although excellent use of Holy Water all around). The angel Gabriel, though, ends up in rougher shape, and it’s nice to see that they’re going with the same line as Dogma, in that an angel can become human upon wing removal. And here I thought Kevin Smith just made that up.
There are really no words for how bad this movie is. I was still waiting for something to happen an hour and a half in. And Keanu Reeves didn’t even get killed in some gory manner. Very disappointing. It’s too bad they couldn’t have gotten James Caan to play the Devil. He would have been great. Actually, I thought it was him anyway, but that could have been due to my mind being clouded after two hours of cinematicpain.
even the Devil was a lousy villain