Constantine

great future prospect in the field of the fantasy genre, but on the whole I found the film overwrought to the point of shame and also terribly uninteresting and slow. Maybe the fact that it's based on a comic book hurt it, because comic book movies have a specific order and attitude that didn't fit this story for me at all. Or maybe it's because I'm not a true connoisseur, as POMO points out in his review, and I wasn’t able to appreciate the film enough the first time. I think the latter option is the more likely :) (10/06/2012)

A conman, a joker, a thief, a magician... Well, simply John Constantine. An Englishman from Liverpool, a blue-eyed, cynical, amoral, scruffy-faced blond who is forever shrouded in a cloud of cigarette smoke and, in a mysterious English fog, solves mysterious cases in which he relies on his wits rather than weapons to outsmart (or cheat) almost everyone, from ordinary mortals to the bigwigs of hell. None of the above, however, can be found in this movie adaptation, not even a hint of it. Not in terms of the look or behavior of the main hero, or the location, or the plot, or the action, or anything. And yet that doesn't mean Constantine is a bad movie; it’s not - it's just a bad adaptation. But damn it, of all the "CGI action comic book movies" it is, even years later, one of the best. Everything here is as it should be with a good popcorn movie; it just doesn't have anything of what a good adaptation of “Hellblazer" is supposed to contain. (06/01/2012)

Cold-blooded Reeves as a savior, who perhaps surpasses even Nea with his charisma, as a hero who is not ashamed to flick his last cigarette in his own blood, and as a tough guy who sends all demons, including Satan, somewhere nice and fast with every gesture. And all the infernal supernaturalism in the inquisitive spirit of an authentic detective story, as no one has tried in the comic genre before. (04/30/2006)

The wisecracking Keanu Reeves fits like a glove, and I can hardly imagine anyone else in the role of Constantine. Francis Lawrence combines interesting themes, visual diversity, and technical finesse into a rather intriguing and good-looking whole, about which you can doubt as much as you want, but you still won't be able to take your eyes off it. (09/28/2005)

The series about a guy named Constantine is not among the most famous comic book projects (at least in mass pop culture). Therefore, the vast majority of viewers got acquainted with this (anti) hero only in movie form and can appreciate the dark world of film comics and the cynical one-liners of the casual exorcist. Such viewers will feel that it is almost an "underground" film that goes against established stereotypes of film characters and stories. It is typical for this concept to compare it not with the literary original, but with the Matrix trilogy, and thanks to Keanu Reeves, Constantine is compared to Neo. Which is, of course, a mental mistake. For a minority of viewers familiar with the comics, Constantine will be rather disappointing, because, for understandable commercial reasons, the film went only halfway in portraying the comic book atmosphere. However unlikely it may seem, the comic book is even darker and more cynical, and its humor is more morbid and sarcastic than in the film. But many viewers wouldn't have stood for that. The comic book's purity of style is simply missing. However, Reeves is perfectly suited for his role and Peter Stormare is truly charismatic as the devil. In terms of comic book adaptations, it is definitely a decent film with above-average direction and quality performances. Overall impression: 65% (05/21/2007)