From The Grave
BLAZING THROUGH HELL
There’s nothing new about supernatural detectives. The magazine Weird Tales sported many of them, such as Seabury Quinn’s Jules de Grandin and Manly Wade Wellman’s John Thunstone, Sax Rohmer had the dream detective Morris Klaw, and Robert E. Howard had Steve Harrison. Modern day Occult detectives are Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series and even the Winchester boys on Supernatural TV show are in the same vein.
Constantine comes to us via DC/Vertigo comic Book series Hellblazer, created by Alan Moore; a minor character in the Comic Book series Swamp Thing. Who knew, thirty odd years later, not only would Constantine be the flagship series for Vertigo, but also have a film and TV series (the brilliant but cancelled too early TV show on NBC) based on it, and even have his characteristics ripped off (the angel on the above mentioned TV show Supernatural).
Constantine (2005) has its share of problems, and to be honest, when I first saw the trailer and Keanu Reeves taking on the role, I was a little miffed and stupefied. Why couldn’t they find an Englishman who looks relatively like the comic book character (funnily enough, his looks were based off Pop singer Sting)? A year or so earlier, I also heard that Nick Cage was to tackle John Constantine. That would have been a worse idea. So what do you do: take an over-actor or an under-actor? To tell the truth, Keanu Reeves pulls it off. He’s kind of like an alternate Constantine, if that’s even possible in the occult detective’s world.
The film also stars Rachel Weisz (The Fountain, Constant Gardener) as twins Isabel and Angela----who is a cop— investigating the suicide of Isabel. She believes someone or something influenced Isabel to kill herself and has tried to get the church to overturn the damnation of her sister’s soul. After being rebutted by the church, Angela asks Constantine for help. He takes an interest in her, and Rachel convinces him to track her sister in Hell by holding her sister’s cat and placing his feet in a bucket of water.
While in Hell, we, the audience sees a horrible and frightening landscape of destroyed buildings and demons with half of their heads missing. This scene is remarkable. The FX, practical and CGI, was an unbelievable standard of excellence in a decade of big action films that literally just looked like they were created on a computer. In Constantine, they looked as if the scenes were made for a documentary; especially the scenes in Hell.
In the beginning of the film, Constantine is called upon to perform an exorcism on a girl who has a nasty little demon trying to claw his way out of her body. Constantine quickly realizes Rachel’s case and the strange goings on in other cases are connected.
There are other plot points that involve Gabriel (Tilda Swinton---Moonrise Kingdom, Orlando, Etc.), as well as Papa Midnite (Djimon Hounsou---Gladiator, Blood Diamon), Shia Lebouf (Lawless, Transformers: Dark of the Moon) Gavin Rossdale (Lead singer of Bush) as Half-breed demon-human Balthazar, and of course, Peter Stormare ( Fargo, Big Lebowski, Prison Break) as Lucifer.
“Who knew, thirty odd years later, not only would Constantine be the flagship series for Vertigo, but also have a film and TV series...”
I have to say, Stormare’s characterization of Lucifer is my second favorite, after Viggo Mortensen’s in The Prophecy. Storemare’s Lucifer is just as fearsome and disturbing as Mortensen’s portrayal of the Devil. What I like about Stormare is the charm can be turned on and off in the same performance, whereas Mortensen’s was all out attack in a passive aggressive way. This Lucifer is very stylish in a suit (as all the half-breeds and Angels) but bare feet. Strangely, when Lucifer came up to Earth, we see his feet are muddy - an odd choice for a character in a horror film, and very effective.
The script was based mostly on the story arc Dangerous Habits by Garth Ennis, with a few elements from Original Sins. Francis Lawrence has gone on to direct lesser fare (horrible adaption of I am Legend), with this underrated film, he shines. If you haven’t watched Constantine because that nagging feeling that Keanu Reeves couldn’t do the role justice (with Matt Ryan as Constantine, almost no one could live up to that) give it a shot. Yeah, knowing the character as a brit and seeing him played understated by an American can be off-putting, seeing the other elements such as a driving plot and great dialogue and effects, you forget Reeves shouldn’t be there.
Go ahead and give this little gem a shot. It will surprise you.
Mark Slade, HMS
Read the previous installment.