Thursday 9 August 2012

10/07/2012: Constantine [2005]


Constantine is one of my guilty pleasure movies. Sure it wasn’t a box office hit nor has it unfortunately spawned a number of sequels, but I’ve spent almost a year thinking about rewatching it. Well, memory served right, and while I had forgotten much, it only served to make Constantine better the second time. With the perfect mix of some of my favourite themes and styles I can only hope that a sequel is still to come.




Constantine is now seven years old, and while I could remember some of the key ideas and had some fleeting images of a cross shaped pool, I realized just how much I had forgotten in the years since I’d seen it. I’m not a person to rewatch movies over and over. I will throw things on again if I’m just browsing T.V. on a boring day, but it is not often I will watch anything twice within the same year or two. This is partly out of fear that my favourite movies won’t be as good the second time, and honestly I would hate that. So after years of forgetting about Constantine I’m happy to say it is still a guilty pleasure of mine and I enjoyed it just as much or more the second time. 

Constantine is, for those of you not familiar with comicbooks that aren't about the standard superheroes, the movie adaptation of DC and Vertigo Comics Hellblazer series. For those of you not familiar with either the comics or the movie, John Constantine is a supernatural detective who battles the demons of hell in hope that he can buy his way back into heaven. Having committed suicide as a young man, John has been to hell and back, and has since made it his sole purpose on earth to “deport” demons back to hell and protect earth in hope that one day the good he has done will outweigh his sins and he will be allowed into heaven. Now that is one hell of a story. The movie’s plot plays out as Constantine is sought out by Detective Dodson, to prove her twin sister did not commit suicide. Constantine is then drawn into a supernatural battle for supremacy as the demons of hell attempt to manifest and control earth.
The standard supernatural bar. Complete with purple lighting and dark corners.
I mean that is one hell of a story, and it makes for one hell of a movie. Constantine may not be the most popular movie, but I have a lot of trouble understanding why. I’m not sure if it is one of those movies that will go on to gain a cult following, I think it will be another 10 years or so until we know that, but I have to imagine there are a lot of fans. I mean first off, the movies special effects are amazing. Personally, I’d say they still hold up to most anything I see today, even for a movie made in 2005. The movie is pretty CGI heavy, but the world is crafted beautifully and even hell looks amazing, if a little scorching. The city of L.A. is both dark and otherworldly while being familiar and homey. I must say, this is one movie where I think the visuals look stunning, and are perfectly set to the tone of the movie for any given scene, whether it is pouring rain or the white light of fluorescent bulbs. 

Now, there are a lot of things in Constantine that just rack up the points in my book. The first is that it shares some similarities to my favourite books, The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. I have a soft spot for supernatural detectives who battle the forces of evil. While, I’m not a fan of religion, I can get behind any supernatural portrayal of heaven and hell complete with archangels, demons, and exorcisms.  Constantine scores even more points for sharing some similarities with another guilty pleasure of mine, Van Helsing. Constantine, complete with sidekick in training, and helping a damsel in distress who doesn’t quite want to be a damsel, has quite a few tricks up his sleeves and weapons in his arsenal. Aside from the golden cross shotgun with a dragons breath undermount, he is also packing some holy water hand grenades, some blessed brass knuckles and is even sporting a magical tattoo. I mean does it get any fucking cooler than that? The guy is the second most ultimate bad-ass supernatural detective, Harry Dresden gets first, and he kicks some almighty ass.
Something about the image of Reeves sitting with his feet in a bucket and a cat on his lap had me laughing uncontrollably.
Of course, the question is, who could possibly play such a man. Well Constantine stars Keanu Reeves, and while I’m not a diehard fan, I’d say he does a pretty damn good job and makes Constantine one hell of an anti-hero, with a dark sense of humour. His side kick is none other than Shia LaBeouf, before he got all famous I think. The woman I spent most of the movie thinking was Kate Winslet of course turned out to be Rachel Weisz, and she makes for a good co-star, bringing the more emotional side of things to the screen. The rest of the cast play some rather interesting characters, who I’m afraid are mere shadows and reincarnations of their comic book selves, but they add a lot of flavour to the world, that I only wish we could have explored more of.

At seven years down the road, I don’t think it is likely that we will ever see a sequel. There was some talk of it in recent years, but mostly just director and writer expressing their wish to make a sequel. There has been no move from the studio, and by this point most of the cast has moved on, although very few would need to return at all. I would have no problem with a reboot at this point, but I would want it to keep much of the similar style. While I wait for a sequel that may never come, I do intend to read through the Hellblazer comic books, and have already picked up the first batch.  I would really try and note some of this movies weaknesses, as based on its popularity and mediocre financial success there must have been quite a few. Maybe it was just bad timing and advertising, or maybe people generally didn’t like it. For myself however this movie just scores so many points and throws at me so many awesome elements that I am probably blind to what turned away everyone else. Personally I’d say that is a good thing.








































Link:
Constantine IMDb

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