Constantine

Year of release : 2005

 

Run time : 2h

 

Genre : Horror / Fantasy

 

Cast : Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Tilda Swinton, Shia LaBeouf, Djimon Hounsou, Peter Stormare, Gavin Rossdale

 

 

Constantine is based on the DC Comics Hellblazer, first published in January 1988.

 

Constantine is an occult detective who has been to hell and back,literally. He knows that heaven and hell are overlapping our reality,because due to his supernatural abilities ( he could see demons from a very young age),he killed himself,and ended up in hell. He was in hell or dead,for only two minutes,but those few minutes felt like a lifetime. Now,he tries to buy his way into heaven,as the archangel Gabriel and detective Angela Dodson say.

Problem for John Constantine is,he is dying,due to the fact he smokes a pack a cigarettes a day,and he is going to hell for killing himself when he was a teenager.

 

The movie starts with John coming to a home where he performs an exorcism. This scene lets us know how good he is at his job.

 

Across the city,Isabel Dodson,who was in the psych ward, is apparently committing suicide.

Her sister, Angela Dodson,who is a detective who is very good at her job,we hear in her confession,she always knows where to aim and what to do to catch the bad guys,who investigates her suicide,doesn't believe she killed herself,because she was a devout Christian,and killing herself she knew would put her in hell. Isabel could see things too.

 

Through her psychic abilities,Angela finds Constantine,but he refuses to help. He changes his mind,when he sees an army of demons on Angela's tracks.

 

Slowly but surely,Constantine's friends start dying,as they were working on Isabel's case,so it must be more here than meets the eye.

 

I personally love the movie, this is one of my favorite movies, it's the only movie I watched at the cinema twice, when it came out!

Constantine is jaded, he lost his faith in people, even God and himself. Angela is afraid to believe although she knows there's a world behind the world, but maybe she doesn't want to be seen as "crazy" the way her sister was (who was put in the mental institution), and just wants to be or at least feel, normal.

The angels and demons felt human, as they had human traits.

 

I loved the way the movie was shot,the angles,Francis Lawrence is one of my favorites,and I love how he directs.

 

The visual effects stand the test of time,as they still look amazing today.

 

The actors were great,I loved them all,the ones who stood out for me were Peter Stormare,who played the devil,and Tilda Swinton who played Gabriel.

 

The soundtrack was good, eerie,blending with the visuals.

 

The movie received mixed reviews when released, but developed a cult following, receiving better reviews as the years passed.

It grossed 230 million dollars at the box office against a budget close to 100 million.

Cinema Score audiences gave the movie a B, on an A+ to F scale.

Constantine inspired a novel written by John Shirley, and a video game adaptation, which were released the same year the movie came out.

A sequel has been in the works since 2011, in February 2025, Keanu Reeves revealing he and Francis Lawrence finally developed a story the DC Studios approved, giving them the go to write a script.

 

Rating : The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of !