IMDB review synopsis of
Constantine:
The Keanu Reeves in Constantine is not much different from the Keanu Reeves in the Matrix trilogy, several critics observe, including A.O. Scott in the New York Times, but many, Scott included, suggest that this film is unlikely to enjoy the success of Matrix, despite its supernatural pretensions. "The movie tries for a stylized, expressionistic pop grandeur -- the kind of eerie, dreamy visual environment that made the first Matrix so intriguing -- but its look is sticky, murky and secondhand," Scott writes. Asks Gene Seymour in Newsday, "Why is it that whenever a studio movie engages the unseen, malevolent forces crawling beneath 'reality's' surface, Keanu Reeves is always the guy charged with beating them down?" Leah McLaren in the Toronto Globe & Mail imagines the studio execs' meeting at which the decision was made to produce the movie: "A few guys in Prada suits sit around an L.A. boardroom table going, 'The Matrix meets The Exorcist, huh .....? With Keanu? I like it. No wait -- I love it.'" Geoff Pevere in the Toronto Star has got it figured out. "The fact is, there is no person in movie history who has devoted more time to defending civilization from evil and obliteration than Keanu Reeves, or who has spent more time shifting between spiritual, perceptual and historical planes to do the job right proper." But this time, many critics suggest, the job is just too big for him. Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal describes the movie as "a preternaturally joyless tale of the supernatural" and goes on to nominate for the year's most depressing film. And Hank Stuever in the Washington Post suggests that the movie ought to be called CSI: Revelation. The film does have a few defenders, including Glenn Whipp in the Los Angeles Daily News, who call it an "intelligent, wildly entertaining nerve-jangler." And Michael Booth in the Denver Post comments, "Constantine takes itself just seriously enough to put on a good show."
Salon gave it a good review too.
It's been getting mixed to bad reviews, but it still sounds kind of interesting. It doesn't sound like a
Catwoman
or
League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen
level atrocity.
It doesn't sound like a Catwoman or League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen level atrocity.
That would be difficult to match. Though I am feeling lucky that I have no attachment whatsoever to the source material -- I suspect I'll enjoy the film more that way.
One of my cow-orkers--who hasn't seen the film yet--was complaining today about how it deviates from the comic.
Though I am feeling lucky that I have no attachment whatsoever to the source material -- I suspect I'll enjoy the film more that way.
I suspect you will, too. I suspect my attachment to the source material is going to render me incapable of watching the movie.
One of my cow-orkers--who hasn't seen the film yet--was complaining today about how it deviates from the comic.
I'm far from a Hellblazer completist, but I've read enough to find Keanu's casting bizarre. Don't get me wrong, I like Keanu, but if you had given me a list of twenty possible Constantines I would have put him close to or at the bottom of the list. Maybe he's good in it, too, but judging from the trailers, if he is good it's because he creates a John Constantine of his own, not because he embodies the guy from the comics. That can be a valid approach, but if the most distinctive thing about a given property is the main character, and you really change the main character, why acquire the property? Odd way to build a franchise.
but if the most distinctive thing about a given property is the main character, and you really change the main character, why acquire the property?
Because if you don't, someone else will get it first. It's Hollywood corporate logic.
That can be a valid approach, but if the most distinctive thing about a given property is the main character, and you really change the main character, why acquire the property? Odd way to build a franchise.
This reminds me of a bit in Monster: Living Off the Big Screen by John Gregory Dunne. A script that he and his wife wrote about Jessica Savitch was turned in
Up Close and Personal.
At one point, after Redford and Pfeiffer had signed onto the movie and the movie plot had been completely changed, Dunne asked the producer, what the picture was really about. "It's about two movie stars," the producer replied.
