Movie Review: Constantine

by Chris 

Maybe, it’s the evil in me but I just enjoy movies with demons. I like to see demons being slain, I like to see demons slaying humans, I like to see demons eating humans, or demons eating other demons. I’m not really picky. I on the other hand am not a big Keanu Reeves fan. So, naturally I was torn. Save myself some grief and refrain from watching yet another movie where Keanu Reeves portrays all of TWO emotions or ignore the fact that Mr. Neo is in this film and enjoy another demon movie. Naturally I chose the latter or you wouldn’t be reading this review, would you?

Let’s talk about Keanu’s part in the film and get it over with. Reeves plays John Constantine, a man who can see demons and exorcise them directly back to Hell. Well, half-demons actually, but that’s kind of irrelevant. At first glance Constantine may seem like your clichéd chain-smoking badass. And he pretty much is, except for the fact that he can see demons. At a young age this drove him into committing suicide. Yes, not attempting, committing. Technically he was dead for 2 minutes, went to Hell, and came back or some other such bull. I must have dozed off at that part. The character of John Constantine is semi-interesting but pretty conventional. And as expected, Reeves played him with the emotional range of a tree stump.

Some of the other characters were interesting, like Shia LaBeouf’s character Chaz. Or was it Chad? Who cares, he’s a sidekick. My point is that despite the fact that I don’t remember his name he was pretty interesting. Screw Constantine, Chaz/Chad should have his own movie. Angelia is a detective who comes to Constantine for help after her sister kills herself. Her character is just as clichéd as Constantine. I’ve only seen it done about a trillion times before by Ashley Judd (not that she did it any better). Midnight, who was an interesting character, was the owner of a shady bar for half-breeds. He attempted to stay a neutral in the whole Heaven vs. Hell war.

Outside of the characters (very few of which are interesting and the few that are, are featured least often) the storyline was pretty cool. Probably because it came from a DC Comics graphic novel. Constantine is stuck between a war between Heaven and Hell where half-breeds live among us and demons are trying to escape to the real world. He must stop the son of Satan from using a holy dagger or some other generic mystical item from enslaving the Earth. There was an undertone to this film about Constantine’s smoking habits, which made me wonder was this movie produced by the American Heart and Lung association?

So I conclude with three words that best describe this movie. Mediocre, mediocre, and mediocre. Constantine is like being in limbo, it’s not really Hell but it’s certainly not Heaven either.