Review of Constantine
this entry brought to you by telepopmusik, "love's almighty"
I don't have a problem with Keanu Reeves. I really don't. Not expressly, anyway. Yes, he's a bad actor, but he's rarely in a movie that needs to stand on his acting ability. Keanu is best when cool and collected, and does well in determined, straight-forward action scenes. I was a bit taken aback by him being chosen to play John Constantine, a long-beloved alt comic book character, but thought, it's still going to be cool, provided Keanu has a good director. Yes, Francis Lawrence is a first time director, but I felt like Warner wouldn't leave a 100 million dollar project like this on a first time director unless they felt he could pull it off.
In this respect, I was right: Constantine, though visually derivative of Dark City (and there's not a damn thing wrong with that), is gorgeous, stylish, dense, fast-paced, and imminently watchable. Lawrence definitely wears his inspirations on his sleeve, but I'll bet his next movie, once he starts coming onto his own, will have a unique, gripping look. As it is, Constantine comes close... but is continually dragged down by Reeves' wretched acting.
Again, Reeves is best cool and collected. John Constantine, however, is disheveled, cranky, and has a lot on his mind. Keanu Reeves was not the man to play Constantine, a character, we're told, is the one soul the devil himself would come to earth to collect. Except with Keanu, we never believe it. There are times, during the action scenes, when Keanu is fine. There are other times-- when Constantine is supposed to have any sort of emotion, and this includes "ambivalence"-- where Keanu is teeth-gratingly awful. You have to actively try to like Constantine as a movie, and what's frustrating is that it's not always the movie's fault. On its own its not perfect. Certain characters and their motivations are ill explained (if at all) and you question why they're even in the movie in the first place. The plot is obtuse and has unneccesary side turns that go no where. The pacing is inconsistent, and sometimes the director is so caught up in arty camera setups you question whether a scene may have been more artistic if he had just gone ahead and shot it straight-forwardly. With all this said, once the movie starts to hit its stride, it's an incredibly likable movie. The supporting cast is uniformly excellent, with loved character actors Pruitt Taylor Vince and Tilda Swinton (the former the not-altogether-there Father Hennessy, and the latter the androginously sexy angel Gabriel) oozing subtlties. Rachel Weisz, ever smart and sexy and a promising actress in her own right (and whose smokey, sexy voice alone could have been the reason she was cast) comes off well as an on-the-verge-of-a-breakdown cop... pity her character gets mishandled in the last act. Even Gavin Rossdale does an acceptable job of playing a sophisticate demon. There are a lot of ideas about religion that were so compelling in the comic book that don't get entirely lost here, and the climax, where Constantine meets the Devil himself (who is played with sleazy aplomb by Peter Stormare, who is always a delight), is completely awesome, and is likely the one scene you'll remember years from now-- certainly much cooler than the anti-climactic hogwash of Neo meeting the Architect in that other 100 million dollar Keanu Reeves movie.
What's frustrating is that the source material is handled with enough affection that this movie is, ultimately, much deeper than you would expect it to be, especially considering how stylish it is. Unfortunately, all this is almost completely ruined by Keanu's shit acting, which is only emphasized more by the terrific supporting cast.
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with love from CRS @ 3:57 PM
Thursday, October 20, 2005
I don't have a problem with Keanu Reeves. I really don't. Not expressly, anyway. Yes, he's a bad actor, but he's rarely in a movie that needs to stand on his acting ability. Keanu is best when cool and collected, and does well in determined, straight-forward action scenes. I was a bit taken aback by him being chosen to play John Constantine, a long-beloved alt comic book character, but thought, it's still going to be cool, provided Keanu has a good director. Yes, Francis Lawrence is a first time director, but I felt like Warner wouldn't leave a 100 million dollar project like this on a first time director unless they felt he could pull it off.
In this respect, I was right: Constantine, though visually derivative of Dark City (and there's not a damn thing wrong with that), is gorgeous, stylish, dense, fast-paced, and imminently watchable. Lawrence definitely wears his inspirations on his sleeve, but I'll bet his next movie, once he starts coming onto his own, will have a unique, gripping look. As it is, Constantine comes close... but is continually dragged down by Reeves' wretched acting.
Again, Reeves is best cool and collected. John Constantine, however, is disheveled, cranky, and has a lot on his mind. Keanu Reeves was not the man to play Constantine, a character, we're told, is the one soul the devil himself would come to earth to collect. Except with Keanu, we never believe it. There are times, during the action scenes, when Keanu is fine. There are other times-- when Constantine is supposed to have any sort of emotion, and this includes "ambivalence"-- where Keanu is teeth-gratingly awful. You have to actively try to like Constantine as a movie, and what's frustrating is that it's not always the movie's fault. On its own its not perfect. Certain characters and their motivations are ill explained (if at all) and you question why they're even in the movie in the first place. The plot is obtuse and has unneccesary side turns that go no where. The pacing is inconsistent, and sometimes the director is so caught up in arty camera setups you question whether a scene may have been more artistic if he had just gone ahead and shot it straight-forwardly. With all this said, once the movie starts to hit its stride, it's an incredibly likable movie. The supporting cast is uniformly excellent, with loved character actors Pruitt Taylor Vince and Tilda Swinton (the former the not-altogether-there Father Hennessy, and the latter the androginously sexy angel Gabriel) oozing subtlties. Rachel Weisz, ever smart and sexy and a promising actress in her own right (and whose smokey, sexy voice alone could have been the reason she was cast) comes off well as an on-the-verge-of-a-breakdown cop... pity her character gets mishandled in the last act. Even Gavin Rossdale does an acceptable job of playing a sophisticate demon. There are a lot of ideas about religion that were so compelling in the comic book that don't get entirely lost here, and the climax, where Constantine meets the Devil himself (who is played with sleazy aplomb by Peter Stormare, who is always a delight), is completely awesome, and is likely the one scene you'll remember years from now-- certainly much cooler than the anti-climactic hogwash of Neo meeting the Architect in that other 100 million dollar Keanu Reeves movie.
What's frustrating is that the source material is handled with enough affection that this movie is, ultimately, much deeper than you would expect it to be, especially considering how stylish it is. Unfortunately, all this is almost completely ruined by Keanu's shit acting, which is only emphasized more by the terrific supporting cast.
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