Warner Bros.
Constantine has undergone a strong fan reappraisal in recent years.
When it was announced in 2005, the transposing of Alan Moore’s working class con-artist and magician from Newcastle into an L.A. based demon fighter-for-hire seemed to be yet another instance of Hollywood cutting Mr. Moore’s creations off at the knees and “dumbing them down” for wide appeal.
When British actor Matt Ryan played the character on television a decade later there was a palpable sense in the fandom that finally we were getting the “real” Constantine on screen, and so on.
Ten years on from that and it’s Keanu’s film that remains in the public imagination: buoyed by the actor’s recent admission that it was one of his favorite roles to play and he has tirelessly campaigned for a sequel in the two decades since its release.
With all that elbow grease finally paying off, it’s worth taking another look at Constantine to see how it plays to an audience that’s been done to death by cinematic universes and corporate synergy.
The answer: shockingly, it’s held up pretty well.
As stated above Constantine stars Keanu Reeves as John Constantine, a chain-smoking freelance exorcist and occult detective operating out of Los Angeles like a kind of supernatural Phillip Marlowe.
Constantine is aided by a young cab driver Chas (Shia LaBeouf) who he is supposed to be training, and generally acts as a thorn in the side of the half breed devils and angels who influence human behavior throughout the world. He’s rumored to be everything from a petty huckster to the one soul that Satan himself (Peter Stormare) will come to Earth to personally collect.
When LAPD detective Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz) hears her sister say the name “Constantine” on security camera before throwing herself off the roof of the mental asylum she was a patient in, Angela seeks out John to try and prove that her sister didn’t commit suicide.
This investigation draws Constantine and Dodson into a plot by the arch-demon and spawn of Satan Mammon to use the Spear of Destiny to be born into this world wholecloth and undo the fragile balance between good and evil that makes human free will possible.
This all culminates in a tense three way showdown between Reeves’ Constantine, Stormare’s Satan, and the Angel Gabriel (played by Tilda Swinton in the role that really brought her into the public consciousness) for all the marbles where John has to enact a desperate con to save the world.
So, as much as the fondness for this film comes from the recent infatuation the internet has found for Keanu Reeves this film belongs to director Francis Lawrence, who fully realizes in visual terms the idea of Christian mythology overlaid (or, more often, underlain) upon the everyday world in a powerful visual way.
Constantine is structured like a classic noir detective story and in place of the meeting with the informant, John meets with Vodoun master Papa Midnite (Djimon Hounsou) who allows him to travel into Hell with the help of an old electric chair and a live wire in the film’s blow away sequence. The depiction of the Netherworld as a blown out, post-apocalyptic, Los Angeles with wandering listless souls is embedded in my memory.
In general, you would have trouble finding a comic book film from 2005 where the effects hold up as well as Constantine does. The effects are backed by an excellent supporting cast who sell the reality of the hidden world of half-breed demons and angels on every public bus and hiding behind every run down liquor store in West Hollywood.
In particular Peter Stomare’s role as Satan is really an extended cameo, but it remains one of the most powerful and idiosyncratic depictions of the Devil ever realized in a film. He hisses like a snake and alternates between stentorian baritone and eerie falsetto. Truly a bad guy worth building up the whole film towards.
Extras include commentaries, retrospective featurette, deleted scenes & alternate ending, and several behind-the-scenes featurettes.
Constantine, more importantly, has lost the feeling of safeness that it seemed to have in 2005.
In our current generation of pre-visualized action sequences and five year extended universe plans, Constantine feels like an actor and director’s vision for a cool film and like the Blade films that influenced it, it executes that vision successfully.
Recommended.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login