JonBowerbank

The only thing that saves it are the performances by the many familiar faces that star in it, which were mediocre at best. Would have been nice if there was more of an actual story or point to the thing. Every 10 minutes or so I was saying to myself "Is this going anywhere?"

I liked the songs they used (respectively), but I felt most of them to be very intrusive and distracting from the story. Especially that riff with the strings that would play at the beginning or end of almost every scene. And there were some scenes where complete silence would have served so much more to what's going on, for instance when that pizza delivery kid was stealing the rest of those drugs while we watched the dead guy. The music killed that scene.

Also, I think the writers/directors have some kind of hostility towards women which is displayed time and time again in this film. The way the women are portrayed is as if they're stupid and clueless as to what's going on. The anal sex scene, the brother pushing his sister to the floor and the girl getting punched towards the end just seemed like a way for these guys to express their own short comings with women, and I viewed it as borderline degrading.

And that one actor Jorge Garcia, his random Spanish words mixed with his English dialogue didn't seem to make sense, and I speak Spanish fluently. No one throws in fully conjugated and otherwise unknown Spanish verbs while talking to monolingual white guys.

I thought the look was alright. The lighting of the party at night kinda made it hard to look at, but it emulated the real life lighting of a party like that I suppose.

So yeah, 5 out of 10 for me. It probably could have been better if they'd gone through a couple more drafts of the script.

Out ranking it's sequels because of the beautiful cinematography by Ron Fricke, this one not only astounds the senses but it teaches a lesson to us all by only uttering one word that at face value means nothing, but once you've watch the film and that definition comes up it all starts to sink in.

Some of my favorite shots were the rolling clouds, what looked to be Utah's Lake Powell, the trucking in shot of the fighter pilot standing in front of his plane, the comparison between urban developments and microchip construction and what appears to be footage of the fateful Columbia mission.

It's a great ride and a great exposition of what's going on in our world. This one along with the two sequels has images that are just as shocking today as they were back in the early 80's.

After seeing 3 commercials for it during the superbowl and various versions of the trailer in the theatre I just thought this was a lame action packed capitalization on Keanu's action star status.

Boy was I wrong.

After familiarizing myself with the comic a bit before seeing the film, my hopes for the overall tone of the film were set. I knew what it should have been and what it shouldn't have been.

Constantine I would describe as a Biblical Apocalyptic Demonic Noir Film. There's very little "action" in the film, and when there is action it's very necessary and not at all gratuitous. Keanu surprisingly has the right look for the part and does a good job of avoiding those Ted Theodore Logan mannerisms we all recognize. His performance is stoic, disturbed, straight and well executed.

My only miff about the film is that the pacing towards the end is so slow and dragged out that the whole climactic feeling and rush that we should have in such scenes is sucked out of us. Peter Stormare is brilliant as Satan, Gavin Rossdale is surprising good as the demon Baltazar and that one chick from The Mummy although speaking with a strangely low voice does a worthy job.

Lawrence's direction was well done, with some influence we can see from our man Terry Gilliam. But every shot is interesting and that's what I look for in a good director.

Overall, I recommend this film, just be wary that it was influenced by a DC Comic and is ALL FANTASY! I believe Neil Gaiman even contributed to one of the comics in the past, so many of us may be interested in this subject. I only hope that a film like this can open some doors for Good Omens to be made.