Andare, Partire, Tornare ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Movie Review: Constantine Nonspoilery review of Constantine first, with spoilery bits further down. Ye have been warned. I keep meaning to post a review of Constantine, which I saw on Friday, but damnit, I'm tired. The people at the 'Mart scheduled me for both weekend days instead of just Sunday (somebody must have requested leave) and so I had a full seven-day work week. Thankfully, tomorrow is a holiday, and I can relax and drive to my sister's college and get a little thesis work done at her library. Anyway, Constantine. Note - I'm not a hardcore fan of the graphic novels, although I've read a couple of them and admired them. But the core plot really intrigued me, I think Keanu is very, very pretty, I like Rachel Weiz, and basically, it looked totally kewl. Bemo and I had a good time - the movie flowed pretty well, although not without several bumps. Keanu looks the part of a man fighting both himself and the forces of Hell on a regular basis - he was pale, slightly more lined and rumpled, and looked appropriately world weary. However, there were some instances in the film where he could have just hit a home run by delivering a line really well, and he never really stepped up and swung the bat, y'know? (Apologies for tortured baseball metaphor, btw.) And Rachel seemed to be phoning it in for most of the movie - although her character wasn't given much to work with, so it's probably not really her fault. But visually, the movie is tres cool, and there are a lot of fantastic bit players to watch and admire, like Tilda Swinton (hello, new girlcrush! How remarkable!) and Peter Stomare. I did have a lot of truble hearing some of the dialogue, and Bemo said he had the same problems. I ended up doing a lot of lip-reading, which sucks. Spoilers Ho: So...is the idea of Gabriel/elle losing his/her wings and becoming human actually some sort of obscure Catholic mythos that I've never heard of, or was the person I saw suggesting that full of poopoo? I'm generally at least slightly aware of obscure Catholic foo, but this one is new on me. Plus, if it is, it would be slightly amusing (and irritating) to find that the writers incorporated something that obscure, but failed to remember that the proscription against a Catholic burial for suicides has been off the books since, oh...the 1960s? One of the coolest images in the whole movie is, just after the death of the priest, the angel bending over his body protectively, glaring at Bathazar. And by the way, I'm still confused on the whole "half-breeds" thing. Peter Stomare played a truly vile, oozy, crazy-uncle Satan, and he was scary as fuck. I haven't seen The Prophecy in a while, so I can't remember how he stacks up against Viggo, but dude. *shudder* Keanu's abs alone are worth paying full price for the movie. Keanu and Rachel both look quite good soaking wet. Points where the whole theater laughed uproariously - Gabrielle to Constantine: "You're fucked!" Constantine floating up to fluffy-cloud and harp music heaven...giving Satan the finger. 12:11 a.m. - 2005-02-21 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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