Francis Lawrence had never directed a feature before Constantine. He got Keanu Reeves, a $70–100 million budget, and a comic book that had been running since the 1980s. What he turned in is a movie that looks like it cost every dollar and thinks like it cost nothing.
Trailer, via Warner Bros. Entertainment.
Keanu Reeves as John Constantine
Reeves plays the title character: a chain-smoking cynic who can see half-angels and half-demons in their true forms and walk between Earth and Hell. He has terminal lung cancer. He attempted suicide as a teenager, which is a mortal sin, so he is damned either way.
That is a genuinely good setup. Reeves, though, plays it flat — the same flatness he brought to Neo, minus the messianic payoff. Constantine should be furious and tired and scared. Reeves gives you tired.
Rachel Weisz Pulls Double Duty
Weisz plays Angela Dodson, a detective investigating the death of her twin sister Isabel, who leaped from a psychiatric hospital roof. Angela does not believe Isabel, a devout Catholic, would kill herself and condemn herself to Hell. She finds Constantine through security footage where Isabel says his name.
Weisz also plays Mammon, Lucifer’s son, who uses Angela’s body as a means of escaping to rule over Earth. She is the best thing in the film in both roles, and she is given the least to do.
A Treaty, a Spear, and a Symbol
The plot: a scavenger in Mexico finds the tip of the spear that pierced Jesus Christ, gets possessed, and carries it to Los Angeles. Constantine exorcises a demon from a young girl, which should be impossible under the treaty between Heaven and Hell.
Father Hennessy, an insomniac alcoholic priest who can communicate with the dead, finds a symbol on Isabel’s wrist and is killed by the half-breed demon Balthazar. Hennessy carved the same symbol into his own hand first. Beeman, Constantine’s armorer, dies too, but not before revealing the symbol represents Mammon.
Tilda Swinton and Peter Stormare Steal It
Swinton plays Gabriel, a half-breed archangel with a disdain for humanity who plots to free Mammon as a means to unleash Hell on Earth. She plays the part with a cold, amused contempt that no one else in the cast matches.
Stormare plays Lucifer, fallen archangel and ruler of Hell, in a proxy war with God for the souls of mankind. He gets maybe five minutes. He is the only person on screen who seems to be having fun.
The Running Order
The film’s structure is a slow burn that never catches.
| Act | What happens | Who carries it |
|---|---|---|
| Mexico | Scavenger finds the spear, gets possessed | Jesse Ramirez |
| The exorcism | Constantine pulls a demon from a girl | Reeves |
| Angela’s case | Isabel’s death, the footage | Weisz |
| The morgue | Hennessy dies, symbol found | Pruitt Taylor Vince |
| The club | Midnite’s neutral ground | Djimon Hounsou |
| The reveal | Mammon, Gabriel’s plot | Swinton, Weisz |
| The end | Lucifer collects | Stormare |
Djimon Hounsou’s Papa Midnite runs a nightclub that serves as neutral ground between Heaven and Hell. He swore an oath of neutrality after fighting against Hell once. It is a great idea for a character. He mostly stands around.
The Comic It Left Behind
Constantine is loosely based on Hellblazer. Loosely is doing heavy lifting. The film takes the name, the coat, the cigarettes, and the damnation, and drops the British class anger that made the comic worth reading.
What is left is a supernatural procedural with a good cast and no pulse. The film grossed $231 million against its budget. It found a cult following afterward. A sequel is in development. None of that changes what is on screen.
What Actually Works
The production design. Los Angeles as a demonic layer cake, Hell rendered as a scorched version of the city above it, is the one idea the film commits to fully. The visual grammar of the exorcisms — the true forms, the half-breeds walking around in human skin — lands.
The problem is everything else. The script by Kevin Brodbin and Frank Cappello explains its rules constantly and then breaks them when convenient. The treaty between Heaven and Hell is the film’s central mechanic, and the film treats it as a suggestion.
The score is 5.0/10. That is not a harsh score. It is the score of a movie that had every ingredient and assembled them into something you forget on the drive home. Weisz and Swinton and Stormare are worth the rental. Reeves is not. Lawrence went on to direct The Hunger Games sequels, which is the most interesting thing about Constantine: it is a calling card, not a film.
5 of 10.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
