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“♠♠Introduction♠♠ ”

★★★★☆

written by zagureanu on 07/01/2010

♠♠Introduction♠♠
-----------------------

Although it wasn't really advertised as such, Constantine was another Hollywood film based on a graphic novel, in this case, Hellblazer.
Hellblazer is published by DC Comics in their Vertigo 'range', which was "created as a venue for material of more mature and
sophisticated nature that did not fit easily with the traditionally
superhero-dominated mainstream comics" (taken from the DC comics website).
Despite the recent spate of films based on such graphic novels (see Spiderman, X-Men, Batman), you shouldn't be fooled into
expecting more of the same from Constantine (named such because of the lead character, John Constantine - more on that later). Constantine is not simply another superhero story, in fact, in so many ways, John Constantine could not be further from being a superhero.
♠♠The film, with a little bit of history thrown in♠♠
----------------------------------------------------------------

The film opens in Mexico, with a young man, a scavenger, finding the Spear of Destiny, buried in the ground beneath a ruined building.
The Spear of Destiny is an actual legendary artefact associated with Jesus Christ, and is one of the most important Christian relics, not unlike the crown of thorns. Described in the bible, John 19: 31-37, the Spear of destiny was supposedly that used to pierce Jesus's side as he hung on the cross. The Spear then passed through many hands, usually of great leaders (who were said to be invincible whilst in posession of it). Over the years, there have been various spears that people have claimed to be 'the one', but it has apparently been difficult to authenticate. As a young man, Adolf Hitler became fascinated by the Spear of Destiny when he saw it displayed in the Hofsburg museum in Vienna. Subsequently, he investigated and, believingit to be the genuine article, had it siezed by the S.S. in 1938. It remained with him, stored in St. Katherine's Church until 1945 when it was taken from him, reportedly just two hours before his death.

Going back to the film, the young man unearths the Spear and is
subsequently seen crushed by a car before standing up unscathed and running away. This links in later in the film, with the man turning up in Los Angeles. The point of the Spear, and the legend behind it is that the person who in in possession of it holds the fate of the world in his hands.

Coming into L.A., we are introduced to John Constantine, as he arrives to conduct an exorcism on a young girl. Lighting up a cigarette, which transpires to be an important plot point, Constantine, played by Keanu Reeves, walks into a scene from the exorcist, but much more well executed and with a realism about it that you don't often find in films of this ilk. Usually shot in near darkness, to provide 'atmosphere',
Constantine takes an entirely different approach, with Constantine walking into the girl's bedroom and opening to the curtains to let the bright daylight in. This serves, in my opinion, to make the film much more realistic than many of its counterparts, because let's face it, that's what you'd do!
The John Constantine of the Hellblazer comics is an English character, from Liverpool in fact, and is a brash, somewhat immoral guy who developed an interest in the occult at an early age, using magic to make his father ill, and killing an animal in the process. The Keanu Reeves version of him in the film, although still a little rude, is nowhere near as brazen as this. He has also become American, of course. No doubt this is due to a consumer need to care about the main character in a film. It's no good watching a film if you hate the main character - you don't care what happens to them, and there's no sense of satisfaction
or relief when they 'get out alive'.
Constantine, the film, is essentially a story of what happens when Hell and Earth meet, and Constantine himself is a person afflicted with the curse of being able to see the demons and has to fight to protect his world. In his own life, he is a disturbed individual who chain smokes - which has caused extensive lung damage, to the extent that he is going to die.
In the film, Constantine is going about his everyday life (which
includes dragging demons out of little girls), but he feels like
something is 'coming'. The posessions are getting worse, more unusual, and he is seeing demons walking the streets. In a chance meeting with Angela (played brilliantly by Rachel Weisz), a Catholic cop whose twin sister has just died, Constantine is dragged further into a hellish world when he realises he needs to help her. When Angela faces up to the fact that, as a child, she could also see the demons, and that this played a part in her sister's death, she is wracked with guilt at leaving her sister to face them alone when she herself denied it all, and she goes to Constantine for help.
In the process of making the Hellblazer comics into a film that was accessible to an (American) movie audience, the production company were forced into giving it a change of name along with a 'nicer' lead character. "Hellblazer" was offensive, it seems, to Southern America, having the word 'hell' in the title. Recent films, including Hellboy, had come under fire for having the same problem, so "Constantine" it became.
Constantine is visually very nice. Stylish, and with an interesting concept of hell, the majority of the film has quite subdued tones. The special effects and CG are near perfect, as you would expect with a big budget film, and it is often quite obvious, once you know, that director, Francis Lawrence, usually directs music videos - it has that stylish, slightly abstract feel to it.
Constantine's plotline, to me, is perfect - someone pointed out a few minor flaws to me, but in all honesty, you have to give films their artistic licence, and the slight 'questionables' are just that.

♠♠The DVD♠♠
-------------------

There are two versions of the Constantine DVD out there, a single disc and a two disc edition.
I have the two disc special edition, which is what I will review, and the single disc version is just the first disc of the two, with the same things on it as the first disc here.
♠♠Disc One♠♠
Disc one has the Constantine movie on it, along with options for subtitles, and with an impressive language selection list (UK is at the end, after 3 pages!). As with most DVDs these days, there are the 'standard' extras: an audio comentary (in this case with the director, producer, and screenwriters all at once); trailers and a music video. The music video is for a song that features in the nightclub scene of the film, Passive by A Perfect Circle (who happen to be one of my favourite bands:).
All standard stuff, but the commentary is interesting to listen to, after you have watched the film itself. I didn't realise until I listened to it how much CG is used in the film - it blends in so well.
♠♠Disc Two♠♠
Disc two is a disc of further extras. We have deleted scenes and an alternate ending and too many mini documentaries to list. The alternate ending...well, thank god it wasn't used. There are quite a lot of deleted scenes, all of which are quite good scenes, but were taken out because of timing and pace issues, so these are worth seeing. Some of them actually do add to the story, so it's a shame they had to be lost.
The documentaries, as I said, are too many to list, and it would take a review and a half to go into every one in detail, but let it be mentioned that they are definitely worth having. In short sections, the documentaries cover everything from the original concept of the Hellblazer graphic novels, and what they took from these to the film, to the making of and special effects. They also go into the legends and truths behind the religious imagery used, including the aforementioned Spear of Destiny. These mini-documentaries run between 5 and 15 minutes each, and in all, there are nine of them.

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“Despite having Keanu Reeves in it (dont get me wrong,...”

★★★☆☆

written by ryoden on 05/07/2009

Despite having Keanu Reeves in it (dont get me wrong, I like the guy but his acting range is minimal). I went in with high expectations of this movie and they weren't met but that was because I had read the Constantine graphic novels (which this film was based on) so I wont let it colour my rating too much apart from to say that the novels were by far much much better. As it stands though it was a decent movie if you are interested in this sort of genre which I am.

I enjoyed the film and didn't find it boring, it was'nt great by any stretch but it was competant and would have got 4 or 5 stars if they had made it with a British actor (the Constantine character was English and the story was set primarily in the UK) and had they kept more to the novel's storyline as opposed to just using it as a baseline.

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“I felt ripped off as I watched this Constantine, it...”

★☆☆☆☆

written by jaze29683 on 27/04/2005

I felt ripped off as I watched this Constantine, it was poor. I can only describe it as a 2 hour anti-smoking commercial with the frequent use of not so subtle imagery througout the film (Cancer X-rays etc.) I'm all for films not glamorising smoking but this took it to the extreme.
The storyline was very hard to follow, Contantine (Keanu Reeves) an exorcist battling to exorcise demons in a bid to ensure entry to heaven, there is a religous element to the film.
The use of Computer Generated effects maintains interest despite the complicated plot.

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“Constantine - There is not much to say except that the...”

★★☆☆☆

written by Liam thomas on 20/03/2005

Constantine - There is not much to say except that the storyline is far too confusing and long to explain and the acting is far too terrible to imagine. Once again Keanu Reeves has disappointed us with a overly-rated, overly, overly advertised movie. The only thing that sheds lights on the film is the special effects.

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