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Constantine

Posted: 01/03/05, 22:32:46
by Alexhead
A movie as damned as its protagonist. The geeks, striving for a dedication to its source material that will never be approached by the huge committee version of art that is a Hollywood Action Movie Production, could never be pleased. For fuck's sake, his hair is BLOND, dammit! How dare you change that??? The average filmgoer, looking for a couple hours of zombie killing with a pentagram or two thrown in for creepiness, couldn't be bothered to sort through the tricky mythology of a well-written bleak comic book that has a more complex take on Christian mythology than most Bible-belt snake handlers. And hey, everybody hates Keanu. Fuck it, I might watch it on HBO in a year. At least an action scene or two.

I implore the wise readers of g0re.net to avoid these myopic traps and go check out the rarest of rare, a supernatural comic thriller released in February that delivers about 3 times as much as you expect walking in the door. Going back to the geeks, shut the fuck up and enjoy a much better adaptation than a DC cult hit should expect to see, even if it's Neo, his hair color's wrong and it's in L.A., not London. Keanu is *gasp* GOOD, he's understated and pissed off and not out to impress anyone in the movie or in the theater, probably his best work since River's Edge. In a trench and tie, with a cig eternally dangling, he looks very much like a guy who stepped out of a well-drawn comic, and a guy in his position should be top-to-bottom black anyway. Funny enough, he works much better than expected as Constantine.

Going back to the average viewers, either don't show up or actually turn your brain on and put in the work to follow the PLOT (yes, this action movie has an involved plot). They didn't put 8 pages of dialogue together to kill time between CGI attacks on the main characters; this is one of the most event-driven, planned out movies in the comic genre I can think of in recent memory. Are there some plot points that get muddled? Yes, most definitely. A few scenes got left on the editing room floor, but if you've got half a brain and some enjoyment of the material, you'll be rewarded for your patience and involvement, no problem. They managed to get the studio to release a 2 hour cut of a relatively complex story, so I'll forgive them what little didn't make it in. And again, it adds up in the end if you get sucked in, and I'd be surprised if most people around here didn't get sucked in.

Quickly I'll note that the cinematography is great but not too obnoxious, hell is spectacular and not overused (the latter perhaps being more important), there are a few moments of truly surreal horror that I did not expect to be pulled off successfully but were, the sidekick kid is minimal and never a distraction, the cast is strong, the sense of humor is solid, and if nothing else gets you to pony up the $7.50, the lead singer of Bush gets his face pummelled (and is well cast and effective in his role--this is really starting to get scary). Go see Constantine and enjoy, it's destined to become a cult classic IMHO.

Posted: 02/03/05, 00:33:37
by Kanuck
That's exactly what I've been hearing about this movie, too. I can't understand why it's... okay, wait, I take it back, I can understand why it's doing badly on Rotten Tomatoes. I need to remind myself that those are movie critics, half of whom pride themselves in lambasting a movie for its every flaw no matter how enjoyable it might be.

Your first paragraph needs reworking, because I thought you were about to trash this movie thoroughly. But it's good to hear more good things, now I'll just need to muster up the ten bucks.

Posted: 02/03/05, 04:10:36
by dhn
Kanuck wrote:Your first paragraph needs reworking, because I thought you were about to trash this movie thoroughly.
But it was a great parody of die hard comic fans. :(

Posted: 02/03/05, 08:37:54
by TC
love the satire. thanks for the review, that actually sounds very good.

Posted: 02/03/05, 10:35:40
by Alexhead
Heh, gotcha! Didn't realize I'd throw anybody off with that first paragraph(I wrote that last night after a large glass of Maker's Mark). DHN, I used to be a comic geek, we're a noble breed but sometimes people need to lighten the fuck up, you know? Again, a much better adaptation than any fans probably have a right to expect, so they should calm down and enjoy.

Don't want to make it sound like they've reinvented cinema here or anything, but for what it is, I thought it was pretty fucking good.

Posted: 05/03/05, 21:10:00
by O-dot
Wait, y'all intentionally handed over your hard-earned money to Keanu Reeves, after that abortion that was The Matrix Revolutions? :mrgreen:

Posted: 05/03/05, 21:57:36
by TC
O-dot wrote:Wait, y'all intentionally handed over your hard-earned money to Keanu Reeves, after that abortion that was The Matrix Revolutions? :mrgreen:
which you watched?? ;)

Posted: 06/03/05, 16:30:36
by Kanuck
I never wasted any money on Revolutions - Reloaded was enough to keep me away :)

Posted: 06/03/05, 16:59:58
by dhn
Alexhead wrote:DHN, I used to be a comic geek, we're a noble breed but sometimes people need to lighten the fuck up, you know?
But, League of Extraordinary Gentleman ... :(

Posted: 06/03/05, 17:09:41
by Alexhead
dhn wrote:
Alexhead wrote:DHN, I used to be a comic geek, we're a noble breed but sometimes people need to lighten the fuck up, you know?
But, League of Extraordinary Gentleman ... :(
Not sure where you're going with all the sad faces...LOEG was a less than successful Moore adaptation, but still had its moments if you turned your brain off. Constantine's certainly better. I don't know what kind of quality you can expect when someone as edgy as Moore is put up on the big screen; again, the complexity of what he generally does within the comic genre doesn't translate well to large art-by-committee endeavors. I'm actually kind of scared of what they're going to do with V for Vendetta, which in the right hands could be a downright explosive political allegory of a film, but will probably get watered down into turgid crap or worse.

Posted: 06/03/05, 17:11:49
by Alexhead
O-dot wrote:Wait, y'all intentionally handed over your hard-earned money to Keanu Reeves, after that abortion that was The Matrix Revolutions? :mrgreen:
I tend to blame the downfall of that series on its highly overrated creators, not Captain Whoa. I have yet to be able to get through Revolutions in one sitting...fight scenes at the end are o.k. CGI swarms; aside from that, it's such a clusterfuck by that point in the "story" that I just can't bring myself to care.

Posted: 06/03/05, 17:32:05
by dhn
Alexhead wrote:Not sure where you're going with all the sad faces...LOEG was a less than successful Moore adaptation, but still had its moments if you turned your brain off.
I tried to like it, I really tried, but it just didn't work for me. They should have done the War of the Worlds storyline of the second run, if they didn't feel like the Moriarty story was strong enough. But what they came up with for a screenplay was just wrong.

Posted: 19/06/06, 12:54:01
by TC
so, finally saw this a few weeks ago. just wanted to say that it was pretty damn enjoyable. WAY moreso than i thought it would be.

good call, a-head.

Re: Constantine

Posted: 20/09/22, 12:57:46
by TC
well, seemingly despite the fact that we got a really good stand-alone series which then crossed-over into another really good ensemble show, the original film is getting a direct sequel that i assume will be ignoring all of that.
Deadline wrote:Warner Bros Sets ‘Constantine’ Sequel; Keanu Reeves & Francis Lawrence To Reunite, Akiva Goldsman Scripting & Producing With Bad Robot’s JJ Abrams & Hannah Minghella

Here is a resurrection of a DC character worth getting excited over. Warner Bros will develop another installment of the 2005 supernatural thriller Constantine, and the studio is re-teaming star Keanu Reeves and director Francis Lawrence, who made his helming debut on the original.

Akiva Goldsman will write the screenplay and produce the project through his Weed Road Pictures, alongside Bad Robot’s J.J. Abrams and Hannah Minghella.

When it opened 17 years ago the Reeves-starring pic based on the intricate DC character grossed over $200 million in 2005 box office dollars worldwide. It opened a world of potential, and fans have long been hot on a sequel. Reeves will reprise as supernatural exorcist and demonologist John Constantine, who in the original is dying but stays around to save his soul by keeping demons from hell from breaching earth. He also gets between a battle between the archangel Gabriel and Lucifer.

This deal was shepherded by Warner Bros Pictures Group co-chairs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy.

Re: Constantine

Posted: 21/09/22, 02:36:34
by darkness
Constantine is kind of a complex property these days, but this film does serve a purpose. The reason he was written out of Legends of Tomorrow is because JJ Abrams set up a Constantine project at Warner with the previous administration. Part of his deal he always insists on is that there be no competing version of the character out there. Then he makes his own version which is a bit different, and gets all the merchandising rights. That's why Constantine was gone from Legends of Tomorrow towards the end. That's why the new Sandman adaption features a female version of the same character (no, it's not wokeness). Abrams had the character tied up due to his deal with Warner. The thing is, that deal sucked for Warner. As Disney and Paramount before them found out, making a deal with Bad Robot tends to be one sided. Bad Robot gets most of the cash and the respective studios foot all the bill, barely breaking even with distribution. Now Warner has new owners who are cleaning house and tightly focused on revenue. They're not happy with the deal and want to squash it as much as they can. They cancelled Abrams' Constantine film completely. That left Bad Robot free to shop it around to other studios. Warner doesn't want that either, so they said, let's bring back Keanu, who's been wanting to do a sequel for years. Warner still has to give Abrams and Bad Robot a producing credit because of the previous deal, but no creative involvement. And no one is going to buy Abrams' Constantine project when there's a new Keanu "more popular than Jesus" Reeves version coming out. Warner gets Bad Robot out of the way for the most part, and they might even make a few bucks on the film given Reeves' current star power.

Re: Constantine

Posted: 21/09/22, 05:57:43
by TC
Jesus that’s some drama. Wow. Well, in that case I supposed a golf clap and “well played, WB” is in order. I didn’t know Bad Robot was that ruthless. Didn’t realize he had the power to be. Weird.

Re: Constantine

Posted: 21/09/22, 19:52:55
by darkness
TC wrote: 21/09/22, 05:57:43 Didn’t realize he had the power to be.
He did, but people are getting wise to him finally. Abrams was seen in Hollywood as the next Spielberg and had tons of clout. But after flushing both Star Trek and Star Wars down the drain, people are getting wise and his power is starting to wane finally. David Zaslav is pretty ruthless and really only cares about the bottom line, which isn't necessarily a good thing. But in this case it works out because he's like, fuck if we're going to let Abrams lose Warner any money, and found a way to push him aside.