Constantine

On one level, Constantine is a hybrid of Ghostbusters and Quentin Tarantino’s south-of-the-border horror flicks. My wife refers to director Francis Lawrence's novice effort as Exoralienatrixbusters, and, as with that tongue-in-cheek alternate title, Lawrence's influences aren’t hard to detect—particularly if you see many movies, or read comics and graphic novels similar to the one on which this movie is based.

On another level, however, the movie takes things to a whole ‘nother level.

In the movie house, at least, we haven’t really seen a character like John Constantine before. Sure, just last year there was Hellboy and Van Helsing, and Constantine shares more than just a few characteristics with The Matrix’s Neo. But the real novelty here is the close relation that our world has—and Constantine’s human characters share—with hell. In the movie’s most catchy tagline, Rachel Weisz’ Angela tells Constantine that she doesn’t believe in Satan. “You should,” Constantine replies. “He believes in you.” And Keanu Reeves’ Constantine is dead serious.

A successful suicide, Constantine has actually been to hell—for just two minutes of our earth time, until he was resuscitated. But when you die, as Constantine tells his new-found police-detective chum Angela, time stops, and two real-world minutes in hell are literally an eternity. And if you come back, as Angela herself finds out, the experience changes you a bit. The biggest thing, perhaps, is that you realize that hell has always been just beneath the veneer of the world you see. Peel back the top layer and there it is, in all its flaming glory. But Constantine knows that heaven’s just beneath that veneer, too. And it’s heaven he longs for, not another stint in hell.

So the story of Constantine is nominally about the ways in which John Constantine goes about becoming a warrior—and a hero—in the high-stakes battle of influence that heaven and hell wage in our world. Constantine is an uber-exorcist, a king of that supernatural jungle of possession. The story is also nominally about Angela’s struggle to admit that—like us, I suppose—she’s always known the truth about demons and angels, about heaven and hell. She’s just been in denial. But there’s a difference between Angela and Constantine. If you haven’t actually been to hell (or heaven) yet, as the “angel” Gabriel reminds Constantine, you have to go on faith that it exists; but Constantine’s already been there, so for him faith isn’t really the issue.

For most of us, though, faith very much is the issue. And for many, Angela’s journey becomes the metaphor for our own hopeful awakening. As the story comes to its conclusion, Angela learns to embrace the spiritual realities from which she’s spent her life running.

For those who are already jaded believers, however, John Constantine is the touchstone. If we’re already convinced of the metaphysical struggle going on around us, we know that the central issue is more than faith, it’s also action. What matters is “what we do with the time that is given us,” as another recent metaphyspectacle observed. So along with Constantine, the audience learns—and Satan learns, too, I suppose, though this cinematic, William Hickey-aping devil seems forgetful and rather easily duped—what true sacrifice looks like.

But is the movie entertaining? Is it fun? Producer Lorenzo DiBonaventura certainly hopes so. That was the movie’s primary objective, he has said, with “thinking” a secondary priority for the audience. To a degree, the filmmakers have succeeded in their goal. Constantine's world is appealing in a variety of strange ways. It’d be nice, I suppose, if hospital pysch wards were mostly unsupervised, if surveillance camera footage looked more like MTV videos than 7-Eleven mugshots, if cross-shaped shotguns fired golden demon-busting bullets, or if you could give Satan the bird and live to tell the tale. But as Angela asks of Constantine, can the human experience of the struggle between heaven and hell really be portrayed as fun? I’m guessing that graphic novel fans, and perhaps a whole new marketing demographic, will think so.

In fair warning, though, this movie could be a really bumpy ride for a lot of audiences. After all, any serious attempt to depict hell and its denizens must be rather gruesome. Certainly, no one should go to this movie expecting a Thomas Kincade painting.

When I saw Exorcist III many moons ago, I found myself thinking: “Why would anyone make this movie, unless they really believed in this stuff?” Constantine finally gives me an answer to that question: the filmmakers simply want the audience to believe, for various reasons. And there certainly would be some value in believing, if we don’t already, that our actions have eternal consequences, as well as an impact in the here-and-now. We all might be a lot nicer to each other.

But Constantine often plays like eschatology-as-theme-park-ride. And when it’s all said and done, you may find yourself tired of the—ahem—constantinanity.

Continue:
—Overview
—Trailers, Photos
—About this Film
—Spiritual Connections