Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Constantine

The Passion of the Matrix? It's unfair that I have to open like that, because it's a movie based on the Hellblazer comics, which came before Neo and The Passion, but it's true, this movie had too many Matrix like elements. Still, the religious background makes for a great, though sometimes complicated to follow, story.

John Constantine is the name of Keanu Reeves character, kind of like Neo, only that he already knows who he is here and what he has to do. He was born with the hability to see Angels and Demons He took his life when he was a teenager, and was brought back to life after two minutes. Now's he's awaited in Hell once he dies, so he's He's a supernatural exorcist battling demons and trying to make good deeds in order to be accepted in Heaven, which could be soon than expected because of his own personal problems.
Rachel Weisz plays Angela Dodson, a police detective working the case of her twin sister's recent suicide. She gets Constantine to help her as her sister's death is vinculated to him and what he works on. Soon a battle between Heaven and Hell emerges, and we have Constantine in the middle trying to make things right and helping Angela.

Keanu plays it cool and not very charismatic, almost the same as Neo, and it works great here because he understands what he's doing, and so do we most of the time, so we don't need so many explanations. Weisz is also great as the one character trying to figure out what's going on.
Lots of very cool supporting characters too, like Djimon Hounsou's Midnite (a friend of Constantine who hasn't taken sides with Heaven or Hell) and Tilda Swinton's Angel Gabriel. There's also Shia LaBeouf bringing the comedy bits as Constantine's sidekick Chas.
We also get to see The Prince of Darkness himself.
The actions is not as much as I would've liked, but the visual effects are great, specially the gadgets which are excellent like the Dragon's Breath from the trailer.

Overall, I really liked the whole religious stuff in the story, and if I add the great visuals and characters, it's not the classic and amazing Matrix, it's just Constantine and it's very good.