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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Constantine. Say it isn't so.

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STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

07:17 / 24.12.04

I'm gonna go see it, if I can master the trick suggested by (I think) Jack the Bodiless, of convincing myself it's nothing to do with Hellblazer, it's just an occult thriller about a guy who coincidentally has the same name.

Whether I can convince myself of Keanu's acting ability, however, remains to be seen...

Henningjohnathan

16:54 / 04.01.05

This is obviously a little different, but I think that CONSTANTINE will probably have more with HELLBLAZER than BLADE RUNNER had with PK Dick's DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP. I loved both the movie and the novel, but they are nothing alike. BLADE RUNNER is a neo-nior detective story set in a future Los Angeles and DO ANDROIDS... is about a guy who kills fake people so he can buy a real goat.

In HELLBLAZER, John Constantine is, essentially, an occult detective who deals with demons on a regular basis.

In CONSTANTINE, Constantine is still, essentially, an occult detective who deals with demons on a regular basis.

I wish that they had cast Jude Law or Paul Bettany. For that matter, if they were going for an American constatine, I would've preferred almost any other actor: Sean Penn, Ed Norton (even Crispin Glover would have been an improvement, for my money).

But Reeves has a reputation, despite the limitations of his acting skills, for total commitment to work. Even though I had bad acid flashbacks to the DEVIL'S ADVOCATE when I heard he was cast; what I've seen of the film so far is encouraging. They didn't make the comic book, but they did commit to making an entertaining and not entirely vapid movie.

18:15 / 04.01.05

Apologies if this is allready mentioned, but John Shirley (for those who don't know, was cyber-punk before the term was invented, but with a nice twinge of horror) did the novelization. Not a 'great' writer, but a pretty damn good one. There's a bit of the first chapter on Amazon. I'll put money on it being better than the movie.

Jack The Bodiless

20:33 / 04.01.05

Yeah, that's my plan, stoatmaster. I like occult thrillers. I shall simply pretend that this is one of those Bladey-Clive-Barkery things. Yes.

Oh, and for the individual two posts above - Hellblazer's Constantine is not an occult detective. He doesn't actually do any real detective work, certainly none he gets paid for. He turns up and gets involved in other people's shit without permission, usually resulting in a lot of blood n' thunder and general nastiness. His motivation for same tends to depend on whoever's writing him, but money/career/occupation has never been one of them.

I like Ennis' proxy description of him - some thing like "a common street punk with delusions of world-saving..."

Needless to say, this is not the Constantine we'll be seeing shortly on the big screen.

00:03 / 05.01.05

I'm pretty sure that Constantine is an Occult Detective. Ok, he's not an Occult Cop in that he doesn't do what he does for money or career or occupation. Like you say Jack, he tends to turn up and get tangled up in whatever crap that is going on. But he does tend to do a lot of detecting and sorting out. Like Miss Marple and Poirot and others he is in the right place at the right time and has the skills to deal with the situation. That he is, in general crime fiction terms, a detective as opposed to a cop. The fact that he quite often makes a pigs ear out of it doesn't matter.

07:08 / 05.01.05

John Constantine is Jessica Fletcher and I claim my five pounds.

20:26 / 06.01.05

Yep...my point exactly...all the pointers are there

09:08 / 07.01.05

so reading the thread I get the sense peoples best hope for this movie is Angel Heart but with a lot more CGI then.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

19:11 / 07.01.05

Not that good.
Angel Heart (not as much as its source- Falling Angel) derived a lot of its oomph from its protagonist not having a clue what was going on. Harry Angel was a Chandler character thrust into a Wheatley story. That was why it worked, and was the lynchpin on which the narrative turned.
Not the same deal with Constantine (either comic or movie, as far as I can tell)- the character is a guy (possibly the only guy) who DOES fit the situation.
Whether they can do either element right is still up for grabs.

17:26 / 09.01.05

Sweet mother of FUCK.

Look at this--it's a scan of the last page of the DC Comics adaptation of CONSTANTINE.

I'm laughing so hard that I'm crying. Or maybe the other way around.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

17:53 / 09.01.05

Oh my sweet Lord.

I have no words.

I'll post again when I've found some.

19:43 / 09.01.05

Oh I don't know, it doesn't seem all that bad. If nothing else, KR seems to be smoking a fag at about the right angle, in that " you're never alone with a Strand " kind of way, and if you've got that down you've got the character, basically, IMHO.

20:08 / 09.01.05

Look again. That's not a cigarette.

20:55 / 09.01.05

He's not smoking? They're not letting him smoke?!

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

21:00 / 09.01.05

from what I can gather, he's got lung cancer and still puffing away when the film opens. Having had demons purge it from him once before. So this isn't really as bad as it looks.

00:26 / 10.01.05

incidentelly for the uk lith, Angel Heart is on ITV on tuesday about 11.30, those intrested could cut out a picture of keanue attach it to the end of a straw and have a loved one wave it in front of Micky Roarke(sp?)'s face. warning, this will probly be more entertaining than CONSTANTINE

01:48 / 10.01.05

But we're not seriously expected to believe that John " bleeding " Constantine is lighting a stick of spuggy though, are we ?

Actually. on reflection, forget I said anything.

10:30 / 10.01.05

a stick of spuggy

Your quaint idiom amuses me, but your meaning is unclear; so I'm going to assume either that either you haven't given the page a second look-over or that your eyesight is so terribly degraded from chronic masturbation that you missed it, and spell out the horrible truth forthwith: it's chewing gum.

That's the kicker, see? It's the end of the movie and, having smoked cigarettes throughout and being cured of cancer in the end, John Constan-TEEN quits smoking.

This is because it is a Hollywood movie, and in Hollywood movies the characters must "learn" and "grow."

More egregious still is how we see the spirit of the pseudo-Chas all bewinged and halo'd, ascending to Heaven. What a pile: we all know where John Constantine's friends end up, and it ain't Heaven.

18:34 / 10.01.05

Is it just me, or is that "Some people like it ... some people don't" line a big FUCK YOU to you people who have read the comic and might have some problems with this alleged adaptation?

I'm sure it's just me ...

20:22 / 18.01.05

Ha, saw the poster for this the other day.

I apologize to everyone for not running him over when he walked in front of my car, as was belatedly suggested to me. I thought he was a bum.

13:49 / 19.01.05

Look at this--it's a scan of the last page of the DC Comics adaptation of CONSTANTINE.

So are they working it into the D.C. Universe or what? If so, what's to become of the "real" John Constantine?

I actually think that would be a great idea for a comic, have the blond English J.C. beat the shit out of the Hollywood version. They could have Grant write it, he loves that thar reality-bendin' stuff.

18:52 / 24.01.05

Hahahaha! That thing he's wielding looks more and more ridiculous everytime I see it.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

19:09 / 24.01.05

Tell me it's going out under the Vertigo imprint as a Hellblazer special. That would make my day... (Off to IMDB to look for the trailer)

Our Lady Has Left the Building

19:20 / 24.01.05

oh dear oh dear... That is bad isn't it?

Sean the frumious Bandersnatch

22:45 / 24.01.05

So are they working it into the D.C. Universe or what? If so, what's to become of the "real" John Constantine?

No. It's just a comic version of the movie, not in continuity or anything. Marvel did the same thing with the X-Men movies.

The nice thing is, they're packaging this with some real Hellblazer stories (by Delano, Gaiman, and Ennis), so anyone who picks it up will realise how swindled they were by the movie.

11:35 / 25.01.05

Oh, those motherfuckers.

As if it weren't bad enough... they're pronouncing it "ConstanTEEN."

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:44 / 25.01.05

I can't wait for my friendly neighbourhood (allegedly al-Qaeda-funding) bootleg DVD vendor to swing past with this in the pub for a fiver... then the nightmare will be over. (Well, technically it'll just be beginning, but the end will be in sight).

12:05 / 25.01.05

I'm really looking forward to this. I know its going to be bad, and I love Hellblazer, but I just want to see it.

Murray Hamhandler

00:58 / 15.02.05

There's going to be a free preview screening of this steaming cinematic turd at my uni, so I'll have the opportunity to see it w/o in any way supporting it on a financial level (which is the only way I would see it). Although I'm so chagrined about its existence that I may still opt out.

It's just that I'm really curious to see how badly they fucked it up. Morbid fascination, is all.

11:17 / 15.02.05

I'm far less disturbed by the prospect of this film, than I am by the tie-in Playstation game that goes with it...

12:59 / 15.02.05

Theres a review over at IGN.com

It's rare that any film can provide intense discussion or debate on the issues it brings to light. I've never seen a comic film that did this. After this weekend's screening of Constantine, debates of historical lore and religion were raging in the theater lobby and continued at the press day.

I can't comment on how accurate or loyal an adaptation of the Hellblazer comics this film is. In fact, I've already heard some fans of the comic gripe about the many changes that were made to bring it to the screen. In the end, the comic audience, especially the one for a graphic novel like this one, simply isn't large enough to determine the success of a film of this magnitude. Sometimes a comic can't be directly translated. Maybe I'd feel differently if I checked out the comics, but for my money, Lawrence has taken the source material as a jumping-off point and made a great film. An achievement of both story and technique, Constantine is one of the finest comic-based films ever made.

14:22 / 15.02.05

>> An achievement of both story and technique, Constantine is one of the finest comic-based films ever made.

Um....really? Wow. Can't imagine it being THIS good.

14:26 / 15.02.05

You know what? I think this looks okay. It might not be my Constantine, but then again neither was Mike Carey's or, for that matter, any writer's after Delano.

15:05 / 15.02.05

yeh that review's a bit of an eye-opener. smells a bit like someone getting paid, if you ask me, but anyway. i'll give it a shot now, i think. i mean, he's a sherman and that, but it's still john innit?

20:46 / 17.02.05

Just saw it.

It´s definitely nothing for Hellblazer fans:

Chas is a teenage boy, who is getting picked on.

JC is from L.A., prays to god and stops smoking.

The movie extremely reminded me of the Arnold movie, where he fights against the devil (that movie, where Arnold throws away his gun in church, looking up to jesus).

And even if you are no fan:

The movie felt like leftovers from Matrix. The action is quite boring, no chemistry between "her" and "him", and the world does not feel worthy saving.

If you want to watch it, rent it.

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