Keanu's the ill-Chosen One
 | | Keanu Reeves in Constantine |
IS there anything scarier than the thought that Earth's only saviour in the war between heaven and hell is Keanu Reeves?
Well, that's the basic set-up for CONSTANTINE (15) - Hollywood's latest flirtation with comic books - the story of chain-smoking John Constantine, a sort of referee in the battle between good and evil for the souls of mankind.
But rather than handing out red cards to the demons who get out of line, Constantine simply whips out a holy machine gun and blasts them back to the underworld.
And when Los Angeles detective Angela Dobson (Rachel Weisz) begins to suspect there's a sinister secret behind her sister's apparent suicide, it's up to Constantine to step in to avert Armageddon.
Despite monkeying around with the source material (Constantine is British in the comic), the film has some surprisingly good moments - particularly the genuinely thrilling "extreme" exorcism in the first 20 minutes - but when things settle down the film gets caught up in a limp plot that goes nowhere fast.
The real problem here is a miscast lead. Constantine is supposed to be a world-weary cynical trickster, with the balls to play the Devil at cards and stash a few aces up his sleeve. But thanks to a slack-jawed central performance, you get the feeling that Constantine would have trouble programming his video recorder.
After his messianic role in the Matrix movies, Reeves very much plays the "ill-Chosen One" here.
And considering no time is given over to any of the other characters - you end up knowing little about our heroes and caring for them even less.
By the end of the movie, you'll feel like Constantine isn't the only one who's been to hell and back. - JUSTIN MATLOCK Rating: Two stars
|
|
|
|
|
|