CONSTANTINE (2005) - John Constantine
Oh wow, it looks like this might be the longest I've gone so far in this project between posts, and for my three loyal readers, I apologize. You see, I've recently gotten really into Fall Guys and despite the fact that I have a lot of free time currently, much of it has been dedicated to this incredibly stupid game and a lot less on Keanu Reeves movies. Besides, I'm currently on the downhill on this thing with only about 25 or so movies remaining so I might just need to keep spacing this out while COVID still ravages the country. Or maybe not, who knows, who cares?
So anyway, I did watch the 2005 movie "Constantine" this past weekend, yet another "new to me" movie and I have to say, for the second movie in a row, I was pleasantly surprised.
This isn't to say that "Constantine" is a good movie because...it's not. However, I did find it to be an enjoyable watch and a not horrible waste of two hours of my time that would otherwise have been spent running around like an asshole in Fall Guys.
So let's just get a few things out of the way off the bat - I'm not a fan of comic book movies. I've watched a grand total of, I believe, four movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and I am yet to watch the last Christian Bale Batman movie, only having watched "The Dark Knight" sometime in the last two years. Comic book movies never have been and never will be my thing.
That said, from the little research I did on this movie prior to this post, "Constantine" is a pretty liberal interpretation of the series it's based on, "Hellblazer." Hell, Keanu Reeves is cast as the titular John Constantine despite the fact that the comic book character's appearance is based on Sting.
This one -
Not this one, even though this one looks more like a comic book character (and yes, I know he's a blatant ripoff of The Crow) -
So, while the comic book character looks like this guy -
As we all know by now, Keanu Reeves looks like this guy -
Aside from a small handful of personality traits and being a chain smoker, the movie apparently ignored or altered much of the comic and forged its own path, which is fine with me since I have no allegiance to the comic book on which this is supposedly based.
Okay, so a quick synopsis, with complete spoilers as always.
Keanu Reeves plays John Constantine, a demon hunter who wanders around the city of Los Angeles, sending demons back to hell in an attempt to buy his way into heaven. When he was a child, Constantine realized he could see literal demons walking around, which haunted him to the point of him committing suicide and going to hell for two minutes, even though it felt like an eternity to him. Because he tried to kill himself, he's forever damned no matter what he does on Earth, which makes it a little confusing that he even bothers to try to bribe his way out of hell in the first place.
This information is mainly relayed to us through one of his many antagonists, the angel Gabriel played here by Tilda Swinton in the second movie in a row in which she is featured.
Tilda is my fallen angel
Early on in the movie, Constantine meets Angela, a police detective played by Rachel Weisz (in her second co-starring role with Keanu after "Chain Reaction"). Angela's sister apparently went crazy, got sent to a mental institution, and killed herself and now Angela wants to solve the mystery of what happened with Constantine's help.
Oh also, Constantine has a protege named Chas, played by Shia LaBeouf before he became one of the weirder people in Hollywood and yet another antagonist in Balthazar, a "half-breed" played by....Gavin Rosdale? Yes, Gavin Rosdale.
GLYCERINE!
Oh, and as if we didn't need more characters in this movie, we've also got Djimon Hounsou as Papa Midnight, a dude that runs some sort of bar for demons and angels and all sorts of other weird characters.
What ever happened to this guy?
The movie has a very serious bent towards religious doctrine, specifically Catholicism and apparently the only reason someone goes to hell is because they killed themselves. Seriously, we learn that if you simply ask for forgiveness for ANY OTHER ACT that sentences you to an eternal life of suffering, boom, heaven it is for you. This is why Rachel Weisz is so concerned about her sister and why Constantine is essentially fucked.
So we learn that the son of Satan is trying to come to Earth to reign chaos on the planet and it's basically up to Constantine to stop this from happening. He gets into some fights with demons, finds out that Rachel Weisz's sister really did end up in hell, and ends up saving Earth.
Oh, and I would be remiss if I did not mention the appearance of Peter Stormare who shows up at the end of the movie as Satan himself as his performance is the best pat of the entire movie. I much prefer this take of the devil than that of Al Pacino in previous entry, "The Devil's Advocate."
Best on-screen performance ever of Satan
Despite the movie pushing just over two hours, it felt like it whizzed by with no real slow parts. Generally speaking, the performances are pretty good and some of the digital effects are really well executed, particularly some of the demons and the shots when Constantine travels to the underworld.
United States of America, circa 2020
Overall, I was relatively impressed with the movie given that I went into it with pretty low expectations.
Scattered thoughts:
*Constantine uses his magical powers a few times in the movie to either travel to Hell himself, send other people to hell (mainly demons) and in one case, give Rachel Weisz a brief vacation there herself so she can see what it's like. This is all fine and good except the first time that Constantine goes there himself he uses as cat as a conduit to get there. As a cat lover myself, I did not like the association.
This would have been my favorite picture of all time if not for the implications of what's actually happening here
*I'm starting to lose track of how many times Keanu Reeves has saved the world in these movies but it has been so many times that around this time, South Park even made a joke about it in one of my favorite episodes. Neo saved the world, Kevin Lomax saved the world, and now John Constantine has, you guessed it, saved the world.
*This is the second movie featuring Rachel Weisz and the second movie where Keanu Reeves and her don't get involved romantically. In both cases, this was an absolute refreshing change of pace where many other movies would do their damndest (no pun intended) to shoehorn this in. Of course, Rachel Weisz must have been pretty annoyed that she never got to kiss Keanu Reeves.
"Come on movie writers, throw me a bone!"
*It was pretty clear by the ending that someone thought this could have been the next big movie franchise. Clearly it did not pan out that way but it did allow one of the single funniest scenes so far in this project when Keanu starts to ascend to heaven before being brought back to Earth as he literally gives the devil the finger.
Box Office Information: $75 Million Domestic ($108 Million inflation adjusted)/$145 Million international for a total of $221 Million worldwide on a $75 Million budget. It was the 29th highest grossing movie of 2005, not too shabby.
Rotten Tomatoes: 46% critics/72% audience. These numbers make sense to me.
IMDB: 7.0
My Movie Rating: 6.5. I liked it enough and would recommend it to any Keanu fan that hasn't seen it. Otherwise, you could probably skip it.
Keanu Rating: 7.5. He's got some pretty good quips in this, he does his job and he's got pretty good on-screen chemistry with the people he needs to have it with.
Up Next: The 2006 movie "A Scanner Darkly" shot with gyroscope. Saw this one in theaters, barely remember it.
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