Constantine

Constantine

The comic:

John Constantine was was the punk rock dark magician protagonist of the DC comic Hellblazer. John would wander through London's back alleys, cigarette dangling from his lips, in Chandler-esqe squabbles with the agents of both Heaven and Hell. His back alley deals were for spell components. He spit in God's face as much as he did Satan's. He was a drunk, arrogant, limey, son-of-a-bitch that you couldn't help but like. It was wonderful, weird, and just my flavor of sacrilegious.

He was created by Alan Moore, the British God on High of comic authors. Watchmen, V for Vendetta, From Hell and ... (Kent goes on for about ten more paragraphs, but we have spared the reader the pain of it all. Just get the point that he's really important) ... and his wonderful re-boot of Swamp Thing.

His creation went on to be written by many others, like Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis and many others. But the character of Constantine, when written well, was a occult con man who suffered from self destruction and a hero complex.

The story the movie takes the most from is one written by Ennis called Dangerous Habits. Constantine is dying of lung cancer. It showed a desperate man who might not live to see his next con. He triple crosses the princes of Hell, selling his soul to all three, without the others being aware. Once he reveals this, they now have to keep him alive. Were he to die, they would have to wage war on each other for the rights to this one soul. Now, they have to fight their father, Satan, to keep him from killing Constantine. That's how you do a twist, if you are writing for grown nerds. 17/20

I loved this character and was prepared to hate the movie. They were not calling it Hellblazer, they were calling it Constantine. John is blond, and was originally based on Sting. They got Keanu. It was in L.A., not London. It had the LaBooof kid in it.

I did not go to see this in the theater, and for me not to see a comic movie on big screen is an exception. I ended up being wrong.

The Movie:

17/20

This was a well written movie. It was thrifty in it's exposition. To be able to take the uninitiated and bring them into the world of a hard drinking, chain smoking, on call demonologist and not lose them is a trick this movie pulls off. It does not try to overwhelm you with big movie magic, it goes for creepy instead. I believe it works in this aspect.

Keanu is passable as Constantine. He has the dejected look down and most certainly got lung cancer during this movie, as he smokes the entire movie, except when it counted. I will get to that in a moment.

Rachael Weisz is the love interest/desperate sister of a demonic suicide victim. I had no issue with her in this role. Plus, she's so cute when playing tough.

Open letter to LaBooof. Stammering is not acting, unless you are Michael Cera. You, sir, are not Michael Cera. Kinda glad you died in this movie. Glad they didn't use the alternate ending that had you with giant angel wings looking all dopey.

Stealing the show is Tilda Swinton. There is a scene with her character, Gabriel, talking to Constantine in a library. They have a religious argument about the difference between faith and belief. It's a wonderfully written piece. Kind of heady for a comic movie, but it works.

Overall, I did enjoy Constantine. While the movie took liberties with the source material, it also did so with the germ of the character intact. With one notable exception...

After getting around that cancer problem, at the end of the movie just when Constantine would usually smoke a cigarette, he instead stuck a piece of gum in his mouth. That was the biggest issue I had with the transition from page to screen. The Constantine I know would go back to smoking, flipping off the world. I imagine that the Powers That Be had something to do with that, but it still stuck in my craw. Luckily, my dental insurance covers craw impaction.

Battle Royale: Comic Vs Movie

Winner: Tie

The movie did a great job of reducing a lot of backstory and still being able to pull off the occult-noir theme the books do so well.