Constantine is NOT great! (Constantine (DVD))

Member Name: BlackSwan

Product:	Constantine (DVD)
Date:	05/09/09 (6 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Big budget spectacle with plenty of action and decent special effects

Disadvantages: Heavy with cliches and little care for the depth of the source material

After "From Hell" and "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" completely missed the point of original graphic novels, author Alan Moore told his agent that from now on he wanted his name removed from the credit list of all future movie adaptations and his fee divided up amongst the artists, Rick Veitch and Stephen Bissette. No sooner had he made this principled statement than calls came for big budget motion picture adaptations of "Constantine" and "V for Vendetta." As much as Moore might have been kicking himself from a financial point of view, you can see with this latest offering that US film-makers have yet to be remain faithful to Moore's creations.

"From Hell" was a massive insult to the nature of Moore's fantastic piece of literature, which is perhaps the greatest graphic novel ever created. "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman" turned Moore's wry satirical piece of black humour into a family friendly X-Men for the Victorian age. You can see why Moore was miffed. The makers of the films not only missed the point they went in stark opposition to the message the author was trying to make. It was like turning "1984" into a piece of pro-communist propaganda.

"Constantine" is based on Moore's Hellblazer comic, supposedly taken its influence mainly from the story "Dangerous Habits". It tells the story of supernatural investigator, John Constantine, possessing the gift of talking with the dead and dying from lung cancer due to his chain-smoking habits. Having committed suicide when he was a teenager, John Constantine has visited hell and knows that is way he is now headed after being brought back to life by doctors. He remains a cynic desperately trying to win favour with God - himself locked in a struggle with Satan over winning souls for the afterlife - by battling the forces of evil.

The main action takes place in "The City of Angels" Los Angeles, where the recently diagnosed Constantine meets an LAPD cop investigating the mysterious suicide of her psychic sister.

As I said earlier, "Constantine" is no different in its lack of irony and goes completely against its source material. Keanu Reeves is not the most sympathetic of actors, so it was difficult to feel anything for the complex and tragic figure that makes up John Constantine. With so many comic-book heroes making Faustian packs or somehow being associated with the devil, Constantine needed to be very different from the usual fair. Moore's creation was an intelligent and profound character who didn't draw immediate comparisons with Hellboy, Spawn, Ghostrider, Blue Devil and the like. However, with the cartoonish and literal biblical translations glaring at us in this picture, it is difficult not to make the comparisons on the big screen and Constantine falls between "Hellboy" (a more than reasonable big screen adaption) and "Spawn" (which was dreadful).

The film goes about using every action or horror cliché in the book and awkwardly marries them with cartoon elements that aren't really very funny. We begin with a scene lifted straight from The Exorcist and then progress through so much other Catholic propaganda without the slightest wink at the camera. The action sequences appear to be pretty much The Matrix goes supernatural and the characters resemble those we've seen in such comedies as Dogma, Little Nicky and the like. The angels have wings and hell is all literal fire and brimstone. The devil is a wise-cracking middle-aged bloke. You get the picture.

Poor old Alan Moore seems to have resigned himself to the idea that all USA production companies think irony is a type of metal.

*First published 18 April 2005 on my "Cinema Round-up" thread on Cyberkwoon.com*

Summary: Another bad adaption of Alan Moore's work. Non-serious horror for the less demanding viewer.