It's just sad that a movie ostensibly based on a frequently intelligent comic book should end up a no-brainer.
Constantine (2005)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:207
Fresh:94
Rotten:113
Average Rating:5.5/10
Consensus: Despite solid production values and an intriguing premise, Constantine lacks the focus of another spiritual shoot-em-up, The Matrix.
Runtime: 2 hrs 1 min
Genre: Action/Adventure
Synopsis: John Constantine has been to hell and back. Born with a gift he didn't want, the ability to clearly recognize the half-breed angels and demons that walk the earth in human skin, Constantine... John Constantine has been to hell and back. Born with a gift he didn't want, the ability to clearly recognize the half-breed angels and demons that walk the earth in human skin, Constantine (KEANU REEVES) was driven to take his own life to escape the tormenting clarity of his vision. But he failed. Resuscitated against his will, he found himself cast back into the land of the living. Now, marked as an attempted suicide with a temporary lease on life, he patrols the earthly border between heaven and hell, hoping in vain to earn his way to salvation by sending the devil's foot soldiers back to the depths. But Constantine is no saint. Disillusioned by the world around him and at odds with the one beyond, he's a hard-drinking, hard-living bitter hero who scorns the very idea of heroism. Constantine will fight to save your soul but he doesn't want your admiration or your thanks – and certainly not your sympathy. -- © Warner Bros. [More]
Starring: Rachel Weisz, Keanu Reeves, Shia LaBeouf, Tilda Swinton
Starring: Rachel Weisz, Keanu Reeves, Shia LaBeouf, Tilda Swinton, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Djimon Hounsou, Gavin Rossdale, Peter Stormare
Director: Francis Lawrence
Director: Francis Lawrence
Screenwriter: Kevin Brodbin, Frank Cappello
Producer: Lauren Shuler Donner, Benjamin Melniker, Michael Uslan, Erwin Stoff, Akiva Goldsman
Composer: Brian Tyler, Klaus Badelt
Studio: Warner Bros.
Reviews for Constantine
While lacking the richness of its source material, it remains an enjoyable, immoral and sometimes beautifully Gothic tale.
Lawrence directs with energy, humour and an amusing eye for bizarre details - such as the fact that Hell can be accessed via the judicious use of a cat and a puddle.
Sometimes dense and impenetrable, but it also contains an unusually thoughtful consideration of the difference between faith and belief.
Constantine's incoherent plotting ruins the comicbook's frazzled, hard-bitten edge.
A stylish energy sustains this film even when it begins to drift into draggy incoherence.
The prime conceit of the movie is its gallows humor that seeps out like clotting blood from a decomposing corpse.
Halfway through Constantine, a fully clad Keanu Reeves steps into a shallow pail of water, sits on a chair next to it and holds a cat in his lap.
This film combines elements of comic book fantasy with horror to create an enjoyable brew - sort of a film noir version of The Exorcist, crossbred with the stylization of The Matrix.
While decidedly no one's idea of the John Constantine of the comics (who was originally modelled on Sting), Reeves acquits himself well enough.
A kind of gothic guerilla warfare, with moody demonologist John Constantine caught in between.
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