Anyways, to the task at hand. My buddy Paulie (shout-out) turned me on to a comic book called Hellblazer when I was in law school. Needless to say I immediately fell in love with this book. In the vein of Sandman (also a Vertigo comic) and Preacher, this was an edgy, adult comic. The beautiful thing about Hellblazer was that the main character, John Constantine, was a real smart-ass. He just really doesn’t give a shit about anyone or anything and he lets the whole world know about it.
This takes us to the film version. I had ZERO hope of this movie being any good. First, they changed one major thing about the comic. Constantine is British, not surfer boy Keanu. Secondly, the movie stars Keanu, never a good sign. Third, it was a first time director who had only shot crappy MTV music videos before getting this movie. What can I say? Besides, whoa… This movie looked like a steaming pile from the beginning.
But hell, I was wrong. This movie kicks major ass. Easily on par with X2, Spider-man and The Crow as one of the best comic adaptations.
The film starts with a scavenger in Mexico finding the Spear of Destiny. (For those who did not go to Catholic school for 7 years, that is the spear that pierced the side of Jesus Christ as He hung on the cross. The spear actually exists and was lost for many years after it fell into the hands of Hitler during WWII.) The scavenger finds the spear and heads off to California (naturally).
Change locales to Los Angeles, CALIFORNIA (see what they did there). John Constantine is as depressed as ever and feeling sorry for himself as he performs an exorcism that does not seem quite right.
Meanwhile, a depressed cop, Angela (Rachel Weisz), finds out her sister committed suicide after she was committed by Angela (see, it could be worse, your siblings could always lock you up). Angela had her sister locked up because her sister said she saw demons and angels walking among us.
Enter: John Constantine, who sees angels and demons walking among us… You see, God and Satan made a bet for all of humanity’s souls. The agreement is that neither leader can get involved on earth. The only “other-worldly” beings that can influence humans are these part angel/demon things called half-breeds, which are what Constantine and Angela’s sister can see that other humans cannot see.
But of course the shit is about to hit the fan. Satan’s son has found out that with the Spear of Destiny and a powerful psychic, like Angela (you see, because her sister was psychic, so is she, see how clever Hollywood can be) he can come into our world and not be a half-breed.
John and the cop, Angela, use their knowledge of the supernatural and con Satan himself to save humanity…WHOA, heavy!
I may sound like I am being sarcastic, but actually this is very well done. The effects are cool and the characters are fantastic. Particularly Satan, played by Peter Stormare and the half-breed Gabriel played by Tilda Swinton.
As for the DVD:
A fabulous commentary by the director, producer and 2 of the writers. The writers can be a little pretentious, but shit, so am I when I’m writing. The commentary is very informative. This is not a comedic commentary by any means. But they actually give some good insight into the making of this film through the commentary.
The featurettes are also pretty good, BUT after watching the commentary they overlapped with a lot of the same information and it got a little old. I suggest watching the commentary and just browsing through the featurettes. DO watch the prop master featurette. That one is pretty cool and is not talked about in the commentary. DO NOT watch the Cosmology of Constantine featurette unless you feel like eating the back of your own head (that guy talks a lot of bullshit).
The deleted scenes are very cool. There are actually 3 scenes with a character that was taken completely out of the movie. The alternate ending is nothing to write home about. It is actually the same scene shown after the credits in the theatrical version.
In conclusion I say, buy this DVD!
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