Constantine: Movie & DVD Review (2005)

(Originally published 2005)

The big problem with a Keanu Reeves movie is that it's a Keanu Reeves movie. With the exception of the actor's droning monotone, a mainstay in his films, you never know what to expect. The one constant in his career is its inconsistency.

Going into his movies, you wonder whether this will be good Keanu or bad Keanu. Will it be Keanu wrapped around the occult, Keanu toting a loaded gun, Keanu saving the girl, or Keanu waxing cute?

In the new horror movie "Constantine," it's all of the above, which will likely sound like a circus act from hell to some and a box office hit to others. It's a bit of both.

As directed by Francis Lawrence from a script by Kevin Brodbin and Frank Cappello based on the popular "Hellblazer" comic books, "Constantine" should have been called "Neo and the Netherworld" given the way Reeves plays Constantine like Neo from the "Matrix" movies.

Here, in the Byzantine "Constantine," Reeves' character is a brooding, chain-smoking wreck whose days are numbered thanks to a nasty bout of lung cancer. Worse for the coughing Constantine is that after a failed suicide attempt, he knows exactly where he's going when he dies - straight to hell.

Not that anything there will surprise him, mind you. Constantine has the unenviable ability to slide in and out of this life and the afterlife. With heaven off limits to him, that means he has seen plenty of the Gollum-like souls burning just below him.

Not a pretty sight, but at least Constantine isn't adding to the problem. His job is to patrol Los Angeles, striking a balance between good and evil by performing exorcisms on those poor sods who need it while also ridding the world of those demons who manage to slip through.

He takes his job seriously, particularly when he gets wrapped up with Angela (Rachel Weisz), an L.A. detective whose twin sister recently threw herself out of a hospital window in an apparent suicide. No, it wasn't her bill that made her take her life - it was something darker and more grotesque, if you can believe that. Besides, as far as Angela is concerned, there's no way her sister killed herself. She was a staunch Catholic and never would have taken her own life lest she end up writhing in hell.

So what gives here? Damned if I know. As straightforward as all of this sounds, the reality is that "Constantine" is a convoluted mess, with many scenes not making a lick of sense, no matter how many times you examine them in the murky light. Elements are to be admired, particularly the excellent special effects sequences that dramatize hell, which looks as if it's repeatedly being hit with napalm and an A-bomb, and Tilda Swinton and Djimon Hounsou are fine in cameos.

But story and characters are key to any movie and here, director Lawrence has lost sight of both. "Constantine" isn't a movie, per se; it's a stunt with eye-catching effects, the type that works well to lure in audiences, who, after seeing this beauty, will be the real lost souls.

Grade: C-