The reviews from early test screenings of Warner Bros. Pictures’ Constantine, starring Keanu Reeves and Rachel Weisz, continue today with two more. First up is ‘Roger’:
I caught a screening of Constantine last night in San Francisco while I was visiting a few friends I knew from college. One of them does business with a movie theater because her bar and grill is right next to it and they both help each other out in promoting themselves in area. She gets invited to see advance screenings of movies that are coming out soon and she was invited to see the new Keanu Reeves film last night, so she ask me to accompany her to the screening. The movie is decent but it could have been a lot more than it was. I did not buy Keanu as this kind of character and he did not hold himself well with the material at hand. Keanu has a charismatic presence on screen and that is what makes watching some of his films worth while but the character he plays in this movie is just an arrogant ***hole who should have gotten his clock cleaned a long time ago. I can understand the type of character he’s trying to play but those kinds of characters have a side to them that not only makes you care about them but also makes you understand where they are coming from. I did not understand John Constantine at all and did not care to, that’s how much of an ***hole he was. I liked Rachel Weisz a lot though and I would have liked to have learned more about her character and her relationship with her sister, which would have been a much better movie than this film was if they just could have based the film around her character instead of John Constantine. Djmon Hounsou, who was so great in the film “In America” only has a bit part here and he does well with it but I would have rather had him play a much bigger role than he was allowed to play in this film. Peter Stormare, who was so great in the movies “Birth” and “Chocolat”, gives quite an unusual take on the Devil. Unfortunately, he’s not in the movie very much at all. The special effects are good but the way hell is represented here is more a variation of the sets that was used in the film than something completely original. It’s a decent film if you’re in the mood for this kind of movie but I think you will end up thinking that it could have been better once it’s over.
‘Mr Hand’ also wrote in with his thoughts:
They were giving away free passes last night to a showing of a movie that was going to come out very soon and they were holding the screening up here in California. I ended up getting a pair of them and took my kid brother to see it. We though at first that they were passes to see the new Elektra movie but they were passes for the new Keanu Reeves film called Constantine. Now I don’t know much about the comic on which this film is based on but I did enjoy what I saw on screen. Keanu Reeves was ok in his role but he looks a little too glum for his own good and really did not fit the character he was playing. While Keanu is the star of the film, it’s the performance of Rachel Weisz that really shines here and she does draw you into the story more than Keanu does. Djmon Hounsou and Tilda Swinton do well with the small roles they both have and Peter Stormare makes an interesting king of the underworld. Some things did not work well in the film like the whole cancer subplot that added nothing to the story at all and the character of Chaz, which should have been left out of the movie all together because of how useless and annoying he was. Despite those things, the movie is entertaining and I would recommend it to my friends when it comes out.
It’s starting to become clear that Rachel Weisz is definitely impressing all our reviewers, props to her for that!
Source: Superhero Hype!
