Movie Review: Contantine
Constantine (2005)
As a fan of John Constantine from his appearances in DC's Vertigo line when I heard that they were casting Keanu Reeves for the title role I resigned myself to this movie being bad. John Constantine is a seedy looking guy whose appearance was originally based on Sting. I thought Keefer Sullivan would be perfect but as far as I know he was never considered for the part. He is a working class Brit and Keanu couldn't do the accent if his life depended on it.
Not that I think Keanu isn't a good actor. I've seen him do some really nice performances sometimes for more than one scene in the same picture. His appearance in Much Ado About Nothing however did point out that he should never under any circumstances try to play an Englishman.
So of course they made Constantine American. *headdesk*
Which is another reason I figured I'd really hate this movie.
But Tilda Swinton as the Archangel Gabriel was something that I really wanted to see and I figured I could at least make fun of everything else.
No making fun here. They actually pulled it off even with all the changes to the main character the only thing that had me yelling at the screen was the casting of Lucifer, who is one of my favorite characters in Vertigo comics, and that will not bother anyone who is not a comics fan at all. Just bear in mind that Lucifer should look more like Gabriel does and you'll understand my objections.
The performance by Peter Stormare who plays Lucifer is great. In the IMDB credits he is listed as Satan not Lucifer even though Gabriel calls his name when he appears. In the series I believe that Satan is a different character and it may be that they decided to combine the two. There are large chunks that I have missed while I was boycotting DC for stupidity so I'm not altogether sure on this. I know that other versions of “the devil” such as Beelzebub are separate entities. I really, really wanted a commentary track to explain things like this. I had heard that there was a commentary track so there's probably more than one DVD edition floating around.
Keanu's performance doesn't quite convey all of Constantine's massive attitude but he gets pretty close at times and I found myself focusing on the story too much to nitpick. They did a pretty good script that would work even if they weren't using an already existing character but that also has many elements of the original stories. You don't have to have read a single issue of Hellblazer to follow this.
They had me from the exorcism at the beginning of the movie and didn't lose me until Lucifer appears and considering my attitude going in that was an accomplishment. Even then it only yanked me out of the story briefly.
Even though I was watching it on DVD and could watch the rest later I stayed up over an hour past my bedtime on a work night because I could not stop watching
As a fan of John Constantine from his appearances in DC's Vertigo line when I heard that they were casting Keanu Reeves for the title role I resigned myself to this movie being bad. John Constantine is a seedy looking guy whose appearance was originally based on Sting. I thought Keefer Sullivan would be perfect but as far as I know he was never considered for the part. He is a working class Brit and Keanu couldn't do the accent if his life depended on it.
Not that I think Keanu isn't a good actor. I've seen him do some really nice performances sometimes for more than one scene in the same picture. His appearance in Much Ado About Nothing however did point out that he should never under any circumstances try to play an Englishman.
So of course they made Constantine American. *headdesk*
Which is another reason I figured I'd really hate this movie.
But Tilda Swinton as the Archangel Gabriel was something that I really wanted to see and I figured I could at least make fun of everything else.
No making fun here. They actually pulled it off even with all the changes to the main character the only thing that had me yelling at the screen was the casting of Lucifer, who is one of my favorite characters in Vertigo comics, and that will not bother anyone who is not a comics fan at all. Just bear in mind that Lucifer should look more like Gabriel does and you'll understand my objections.
The performance by Peter Stormare who plays Lucifer is great. In the IMDB credits he is listed as Satan not Lucifer even though Gabriel calls his name when he appears. In the series I believe that Satan is a different character and it may be that they decided to combine the two. There are large chunks that I have missed while I was boycotting DC for stupidity so I'm not altogether sure on this. I know that other versions of “the devil” such as Beelzebub are separate entities. I really, really wanted a commentary track to explain things like this. I had heard that there was a commentary track so there's probably more than one DVD edition floating around.
Keanu's performance doesn't quite convey all of Constantine's massive attitude but he gets pretty close at times and I found myself focusing on the story too much to nitpick. They did a pretty good script that would work even if they weren't using an already existing character but that also has many elements of the original stories. You don't have to have read a single issue of Hellblazer to follow this.
They had me from the exorcism at the beginning of the movie and didn't lose me until Lucifer appears and considering my attitude going in that was an accomplishment. Even then it only yanked me out of the story briefly.
Even though I was watching it on DVD and could watch the rest later I stayed up over an hour past my bedtime on a work night because I could not stop watching
posted by Ranuel | 5:37 PM
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