(Movie) Highway to Hell...A look at Constantine (2005)

Since I was a young boy, I've always had a fascination with the concept of good and evil.

This film got me all excited. 

Angels v Demons with humans as the ball.

John Constantine: Exorcist, Demonologist and asshole, is not content to just be a ball in the game of life. He proactively uses his knowledge and power to buy his way back into heaven.

Review, begin! 

Story/Dialogue: John Constantine is approached by Angela Dodson, a psychic twin whose other half, Isobel, recently killed herself under the influence of hell. 

John is tasked with unravelling the greater plot between the half breeds of both heaven and hell and saving Isobel's soul. A simple, straight forward story. 

Before I continue the review, a quick shout out to actors who play their parts so well, but we forget their names until they do something a little more mainstream. I'm looking at you Djimon Honsou. Your Papa Midnight performance was awesome. 

In regards to dialogue, Constantine is filled with dry humour. John tends to play what I'm dubbing the Sherlock card. He's a total asshole (which he totally owns,) but people keep him around because he knows more than they do. 

Cinematography: The lighting and framing of this movie gives off the feeling that these humans we're following around are powerless and something greater looms in the background.

One of the things I found fascinating was the fact that there were moments where the green screen felt real (First trip to Hell,) and yet others feel less real (Also see first trip to Hell.) It's actually really well done and I throughly appreciated it.

 

Audio: Subtle, yet not exactly memorable. That is what the soundtrack was like.

Though, I have to give massive credit to the foley artists for that scene with Lucifer. It must have been a nightmare matching up all those sounds to the flecks of glass. So awesome.

Overall: Firstly, I've never read a Hellblazer comic. So I enjoyed this. I love learning about mystic artefacts and beings greater than ourselves. I get an enormous joy out of it. 

Does this make Constantine of 2005 a good movie? Not as much as I would have liked. It relies heavily on either having prior knowledge of the comics or even a crash course in Christian mythology.

Sidenote: They tried again with the Constantine TV series. It's a shame that got cancelled. 

I want to see more of the world that was created with Keanu and Rachel. Not that I don't like Matt Ryan and Angelica Celaya.

This movie gets 3.5 stars.