Movie Review – Constantine
A war is being waged between Heaven and Hell. This is the story of those caught in the middle. John Constantine has been to hell, and now is doing what he can to avoid going back. Given a gift to see what others can’t he battles those who might cross over from another plane into ours.
Keanu Reeves stars in this comic book to silver screen movie. Looking less and less like Ted Logan from Bill and Ted, he plays a man with a gift, or a curse depending on your point of view, and uses it to keep the balance between good and evil. Rachel Weiss plays twins Angela and Isobel Dodson who are caught up in events. Other actors include Djimon Hounsou, Gavin Rossdale of the band Bush as a demon and Peter Stormare, lately found in Prison Break as Satan. Stormare does a great job of playing the number one bad guy, so good infact that I found myself wondering what other bad guys he could play well and the first that sprang to mind, was the Joker in the Batman Beyond movies.
There is a lot of special effects in this movie, that in of its self is not a bad thing, but there does seem to be more special effects than acting. Given that quite a lot of the scenes take place in hell, you can’t exactly use a backlot in Hollywood, but it just felt too much.
In this day and age when special effects are so good, I am looking forward to a movie that uses special effects to only slightly alter things on screen. Not making them spectacular but perhaps change things up enough to make the viewer wonder when reality end and the special effects take over.
Its a good story, with plenty of witty remarks and come backs but it isn’t really one of those movie that I tend to be drawn to. For starters, its got moments when it makes the audience jump. I do not do well in those moments. I tend to get drawn into a movie enough that I don’t look ahead to the moment and so when it happens, I tend to jump. With all the Angels and Demons (good name for a book that!) flying around, I was often distracted while I waited for something important to happen. Don’t get me wrong, its a good movie, very well done with good special effects, I just wonder if perhaps its a case of ‘less is more’ would have been better.
