Constantine

 

Constantine 2005

• Director: Francis Lawrence
• Seen by this director: The Hunger Games, I Am Legend
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Djimon Hounsou, Tilda Swinton, Peter Stormare
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Keanu Reeves – John Wick, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, The Day the Earth Stood Still, A Scanner Darkly, Thumbsucker, Matrix etc, Feeling Minnesota, Johnny Mnemonic, Speed, Much Ado about Nothing, My Own Private Idaho, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Tune in Tomorrow
• Rachel Weisz – The Favourite, The Deep Blue Sea, The Constant Gardener, The Fountain, About a Boy, Beautiful Creatures, Sunshine
• Djimon Hounsou – The Tempest, Blood Diamond, The Island, In America, Gladiator, Amistad
• Tilda Swinton – The Personal History of David Copperfield, Doctor Strange, Hail Caesar, Snowpiercer, Only Lovers Left Alive, Moonrise Kingdom, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Burn After Reading, Michael Clayton, Broken Flowers, Thumbsucker, Young Adam, Beach, Orlando
• Peter Stormare – Rapture, The Zero Theorem, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, The Brothers Grimm, Chocolat, Dancer in the Dark, Fargo, Awakenings
• Dan Hedaya – Alien Resurrection, A Life Less Ordinary and others
• Why? The cast.
• Seen: 11 December 2022 

       John Constantine (Reeves) is an exorcist, a heavy smoker with aggressive lung cancer and a burning mission to redeem himself before God who has condemned him to Hell for having committed suicide as a teenager. Angela Dodson (Weisz) is a cop whose identical twin has committed suicide.

       There are demons, the Catholic Church, Hell, supernatural powers, half-angels, half-demons, witchcraft and Satan (Stormare) himself. God is there in the background though we don’t see him. ‘God is a kid with an ant hill,’ Constantine tells Dodson.

       It teeters on the edge of ridiculous but somehow manages to be clever, intriguing and dramatic. The main problem with the film is that there’s just too much of it. A little subtlety and a smidgen of minimalism would have been a fine thing.

       But it’s entertaining.    

 3* of 5