I saw Constantine last night... good flick!

POSTED BY: Hjermsted
UPDATED: Tuesday, March 8, 2005 19:34
VIEWED: 5577
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CLEANER

Tuesday, February 22, 2005 11:50 PM

Im looking forward to seeing the movie as I havent read any of the comics or books. Just like 99.99999% of the population havent.

"If wishes were horses we'd all be eating steak!!!"

ALTA

Wednesday, February 23, 2005 12:45 AM

Already have been to see it twice. I've not read the comic either and really enjoyed the movie dispite all the bad reviews.

*****************************
There's no place I can be
Since I found Serenity

ROCKETJOCK

Wednesday, February 23, 2005 3:49 AM

Okay, for the record, Alan Moore created the character of John Constantine during his mid-1980's run on Swamp Thing; in these stories Constantine was more or less a narrative device, a means to introduce Swampy to his increased abilities and responsibilities following Moore's redefinition of him as Earth's plant elemental. Moore gradually developed Constantine past the spear-carrier level, but carefully left his past undefined, except for hints that he'd had a bad experience involving a botched exorcism, and an on-again/off-again romantic relationship with the Justice League's resident sorceress Zatanna.

After Moore left DC, the Constantine character was given to other writers, under the title Hellblazer. (The original title was to have been Hellraiser, but was changed to avoid confusion with the works of Clive Barker.) For the most part the later creative hands stayed true to Moore's original vision, but expanded on his backstory to the point of introducing an ancestral line steeped in mysticism.

I saw the movie a couple of days ago; I went in prepared to dislike it, and found myself disliking just parts of it, primarily the Americanization of the setting and characters -- John Constantine is not just British, he's a Londoner, a street punk so ruddy lower-class he bleeds malt vinegar. I mean, it's like 007 saying "I'm Bond. Jimmy-Bob Bond" in a west-Texas accent.

That out of the way, I found the film's general style and tone consistent with the comics, including Constantine's contempt for both sides in the Heaven/Hell war. (John's attempts to buy his way into Heaven were taken from the comic's cancer story arc, but were remarkably out of character even then -- still, to quote Larry Niven, "You'd be surprised how fast you can get religion; just let one demon tell you you're damned...")

I've never seen or read From Hell, so I can't comment on it. I loved the graphic version of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but am considerably less enamored of the film -- although I think it caught the book's visual style fairly closely. My biggest complaint is that Tom Sawyer (not even a character in the book) was too damned young! He was a kid in the antebellum south, for Christ's sake, which would make him Quatermain's rough contemporary, if not a bit older.

I don't have any great hopes for a film version of Watchmen, although I think V for Vendetta has cinematic possibilities. I'm not going to hold my breath though.

Still, if the attempts to adapt Moore to the big screen have proven creatively bankrupt, well, at least they've earned him wonderfuly obscene amounts of money. As Phil Foglio pointed out, the proper way for an author to negotiate with Hollywood is for the author to stand on one side of the San Andreas Fault with a manuscript, while the studio reps stand on the other side with a bag full of thousand-dollar bills; at a prearranged signal, both sides toss their item to the other. The Author should then go right to his bank, and for God's sake never see the film!

"Hermanos! The Devil has built a robot! Andale!" -- Numero Cinco

CHRISTHECYNIC

Monday, February 28, 2005 1:20 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hell's Kitten:
These atrocities wouldn't be nearly so bad if they changed the title and character names and didn't try to maintain any connection to the original comic.

Tell me about it, ever seen Starship Troopers? As the genre of funnily crap sci-fi goes it's on top of its game, but even suggesting it is in any way related to the book is an atrocity.

What, some of the characters have the same names, one of the characters shares the same hometown as his namesake in the book, and there are bugs. Oh so much connection.

Even in that rare moment that the plots do coincide, I only remember one, the results and causes are completely different.

I have no problem with The movie, but every time someone mentions it I feel morally obligated to tell them, loudly, that it is nothing like the book.

-

By the way, watch the movie (Constantine I mean), it is good, just pretend that the names are different.

SIKKUKUT

Monday, February 28, 2005 4:03 AM

I sense a pattern here: Those who are vaguely familiar with the character seem to have enjoyed this film the most. I know Constantine only from his appearances in Gaiman's Sandman comics, and the movie was much better than I expected.

Yes, the Americanization was very unfortunate, and Keanu really is terrible when you ask him to portray... well, really anything. That aside:

The script was surprisingly good, and there were a lot of good lines even Keanu's delivery couldn't ruin.

I loved the visual style of the movie, both the noir grit of the "real" stuff and the bizarrity of the effects shots. Really just an extremely well-shot film. Excellent vision of Hell, too.

Tilda Swinton was a brilliant Gabriel. Wow.

Easily the weirdest spin on Satan I've yet encountered. I found him sort of off-putting, and then I thought... well, it's Satan, eh? It worked surprisingly well.

Agreed about John Glover in Brimstone! Man, that was a good show. A good show that didn't make it out of F*X's Friday night Death Slot.... huh.

And yeah, one must increasingly watch movies pretending that they and their characters have different names. I, Robot comes to mind, as does, I fear, the impending War of the Worlds. It is a trend I am weary of.

But yeah, I actually really liked this movie, and I didn't expect to. I wasn't even going to go see it, but a friend wanted to.

Did anybody else feel that the little bit of printed exposition at the very beginning was unnecessary and distracting?

____________________________
"You're mean. Firefly's making me reconsider my lifelong devotion to Star Trek." --My mother

SMITH

Monday, February 28, 2005 5:08 AM

Constantine's only just been released in Australia this past week, so I've finally been able to see what people are talking about. I've read a few issues of the 'graphic novel' and enjoyed them, I planned on reading more but they're kinda hard to come by here. Anyway, after being introduced to the character I thought I'd go see the film, and I have to admit, I don't regret it. I found it a little hard to get into at first, admittedly Keanu seemed a tad wooden at times, but as the movie progressed I found his laid back character went well with the original John Contantine's devil-may-care personality. The Americanisation was a little off-putting though. Overall I found the movie to be enjoyable...I loved being able to pick up the little references to the comic within the text (eg. flipping off the First Fallen). I think it's worth a look, though fans of the comic may tend to be harsher critics than others. But just to put things in perspective... we could have ended up with another "Batman and Robin" on our hands, so let us be thankful!

CHRISTHECYNIC

Tuesday, March 1, 2005 12:07 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Sikkukut:
Easily the weirdest spin on Satan I've yet encountered. I found him sort of off-putting, and then I thought... well, it's Satan, eh? It worked surprisingly well.

There are all of these different interpretations of the fall, right? But I thought that they all agreed Satan (Lucifer, Lord of Dis, Lord of the Flies, Prince of Hell, The Morning Star, whatever other name they’re using today) was full of pride. So he should be vain right? In fact some say that it was vanity alone that cause him to fall.

Why does he never seem to be portrayed as such? I suppose that he might have become depressed and unconcerned with appearance after such a long exile, but most of the literature seems to imply that he is strong, almost heroic in a evil kind of way, and that he’d never allow himself to become what we saw in the film, if only to spite god.

Also, did I miss a memo? When did people start saying that demons looked ugly? I know it’s been around for longer than Christianity, but if it’s going to be original, which I think it was, why not be semi accurate? Demons, with few exceptions mentioned only in almost universally rejected apocrypha, are angels or the descendants of angels.

The son of Satan must either be a full angel or a half angel, nowhere does it say that Nephilim look like that. I know it’s minor, I know it’s tradition, but it gets on my nerves

Did anybody else feel that the little bit of printed exposition at the very beginning was unnecessary and distracting?

I must have, I don’t even remember it.

HELL'S KITTEN

Thursday, March 3, 2005 10:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Sikkukut:
I loved the visual style of the movie, both the noir grit of the "real" stuff and the bizarrity of the effects shots. Really just an extremely well-shot film. Excellent vision of Hell, too.

The mere fact that you used the "word" bizarrity almost makes me want to see the movie.

I guess it's the whole Keanu thing I can't seem to get past. I very much dislike him (read: loathe), and seeing him portray a character that I dearly love is somewhat disturbing.

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
There are all of these different interpretations of the fall, right? But I thought that they all agreed Satan (Lucifer, Lord of Dis, Lord of the Flies, Prince of Hell, The Morning Star, whatever other name they’re using today) was full of pride. So he should be vain right? In fact some say that it was vanity alone that cause him to fall.

(They agreed, eh? No matter.) Have you ever read "Murder Mysteries" by Neil Gaiman? If you're at all interested in a different take on Lucifer, it's a great short story. My favorite, in fact.

无党派人士

ANTHONYT

Tuesday, March 8, 2005 6:17 PM

Constantine.... never read the comic.

Let me tell you why the movie works, where so many other special-effects laden superheroic horror dramas might fail...

It doesn't take itself too seriously.

You've got demons and angels and magic artifacts... and the necessary smirk.

The smirk makes all the difference.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

WELLHEREIAM

Tuesday, March 8, 2005 7:34 PM

a few thoughts:

1)though not wanting him to be type-cast, James Marsters would have been more than perfect for a Hellblazer film and would have instantly fixed the need for a location and title change.

2)last i heard Terry Gilliam (Brazil, 12 monkeys, Fisher King), is planning (sometime, this is an old fact) to do the Watchmen movie. I think he could do a splendid job.

3)traditionally, all of the Beauty Lucifer took so much pride in was infact just God's reflected glory (like moon/sun), so when he fell he lost the Beauty. But he was considered a master of deception and could fake beauty (lowercase b).

4)Murder Mysteries rules!

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