deathpixie | Just in case you were curious...

I've never read the comics, so I'll be seeing the movie somewhat blind in that regard. ;) However, I'm going to withhold my opinion of the movie till I do go see it myself. I tend not to trust movie reviews for the most part. Considering that some of my favourite movies of all time have gotten severely bashed by movie reviewers.

*grins* I think I may be one of the few people on the planet who liked both Van Helsing and 'League of Extrodinary Gentlemen'.

i can't even sit through the trailers - it looks bad. Mind you, I'm a tad biased, given I actually read the book and have written Hellblazer fic. ;)

Constantine, if they were insisting on an American actor, should have been Denis Leary.

That may be one of the most beautiful sentences I've ever read.

I'm going to see it on Saturday for reviewing purposes. Pity me.

I do. And for me the only actors who could have done a _real_ Constantine (ie _English_), are John Hannah and Guy Pearce. Guy's Aussie, but after seeing him in Memento, I thought he was perfect...

Actually, this looks to me a lot like someone slamming a movie to give themselves egoboos with their own vocabulary and cleverness. The root criticism could be said about any movie. We could insert the movie Die Hard or Million Dollar Baby into this article and it would still work.

I am very upset that they've changed the fact that Constantine is an asshole, but by casting Reeves we all knew that was coming. He's too sincere of an actor - and you must admit, he's getting a LOT better as an actor. Not to mention, while Constantine the character IS a jerk, he's really more of a poser than anything else. When the chips are down, he has shown himself time and time again to be sincerely against evil. Even if Reeves hasn't read the book, his adaptation, or as much as he was allowed to come up with himself, does have solid roots.

Now, being nice to a bird for the sake of being nice is a far stretch, admittedly. But give the movie a chance. It CANNOT be worse than the Hulk. It CANNOT be worse than Daredevil. I plan to go see it tomorrow night. I'll let you know if it's worth seeing. =)

1) John Constantine is an essentially English character. There's layers there that are tied intimately in with his nationality and his background. John the American (living in LA of all places) doesn't work.

2) In the movie he's running around with the shotgun equivalent of the HOly Hand Grenade. Pardon me while I laugh hysterically.

3) Chas, the loyal taxi-driving mate who's pretty much the only one who can tell John when he's being a prick and sometimes not get his head kicked in for it, is portrayed as an 18 year old black street punk.

I rest my case.

1. I ask you to consider things differently. These characteristics - cussing, for instance. In LA they say shit and fuck a lot, not bloody. If Reeves says shit and fuck a lot, the characteristic is the same, only the curseword and accent changes. If Constantine really loves England, loves his cities, but bitches bitterly about them, when Reeves bitches ceaselessly about LA but still risks his soul to protect it, for the stated purpose of redeeming his soul, but for the real purpose of his love for it, the characteristic remains.

2. The Holy Shotgun is completely ridiculous. Granted. But some of the other favorites are still in the movie, so we can all just laugh when he's using the Holy Shotgun.

3. I don't think Chas is portrayed as a black guy, because the actor who is playing him seems to be white . . .

Not to be arguementative, but your case is not resting yet. =) You really don't want to give this movie half a chance, and I think it is going to suck for you, but maybe not necessarily because it's a bad adaptation. You want a strict adaptation, just like I do for the HP movies, and I loved the first one for sticking so closely to the book. We all want that. LOTR did a great job of trying for it. This is not LOTR, or HP 1, but it might not be a total loss.

1) There's more to being English than the swear words you use, or which city you love/hate. There's more to Constantine than swearing, drinking and smoking. Your examples are like saying there's no difference between say, Phil and Hex, except the fact one says bloody and bollocks instead of shit and fuck.

There are huge cultural differences between England and the US, and London and LA. One of the great things about Delano's run on Hellblazer is that he wrote and English character. To render the historial, political and social influences on that character down to a difference is swearwords is taking a simplistic view of the chracter. Sorry if that sounds rude, but that's how I see it.

2) Agreed on the Shotgun.

3) *blinks* Okay, could have sworn the black guy with the car in the trailers was meant to be Chas. But I'm laying odds on he's not a 40-something taxi driver with a wife and hoarde of kids at home.

Like I said to Bounce, there's a lot of films I haven't seen, not just because they're bad adaptations, but they're bad movies. Van Helsing, for one, looked absolutely awful in every trailer and review I saw, and the movie reviewers whose opinions I trust said as much. At $14 a ticket, I'm not going to waste my hard-earned on something I already don't like the look of.

You're assuming you know what I want. I want a good movie. It's a bad adaptation, yes. But it is possible to have a bad adaptation still be a good film. "High Fidelity" I like a lot, but it's very unlike the book, by all accounts. "Constantine" looks like another basic Hollywood epic of Good vs Evil, with more CGI than actual acting (and that's from what I've seen of the trailers, btw - Keanu's got all the emotion of a lump of wood). I'm not going to see it for that reason as much as the reason it takes a character I like rather a lot (to the point I've written two rather long fics about him) and essentially turns him into a joke - one, I'm disappointed to realise - will be most people's interpretation of John Constantine.

1. You're missing the point. There are huge cultural differences between England and the US, and London and LA. You are correct. However, transplanting the character from one to another does not change the characteristics. What is true to John Constantine in England can be true to John Constantine in LA. If you're married to the fact that he's specifically English, then you're right. If you're married to the characteristics of Constantine, then it doesn't matter. As long as the influences of the United States are as true on him as the influences of England, essentially he's still the same character.

2. The Holy Shotgun has proven to be an excuse to use cool Matrix-like slow mo. It also bears the most accurate shot on the planet.

3. Nope, he's really a white kid.

I don't assume I know what you want. All I can tell you is that you've condemned the movie in your head without seeing it, which of course means it will not fail to disappoint you. Your mind is made up. I'm not even necessarily trying to dissuade you from it, I just wanted to make certain you recognized that if it starred someone other than a familiar and well-explored character, you might actually think it worth viewing.

And having just seen it, it's worth viewing. Not at that price - I paid $7 and I think that was fair. Are matinees cheaper over there than evening shows? Or IS that the cheap rate?

The trailers make me flinch everytime I see them. Taken completely out of context, without ANY of the Hellblazer background, it still looks like shit.

Sigh.

I haven't seen the shorts but yeah. It looks bad. But, honestly, dude? you've sat through a couple of Harry Potter movies and you hate them more than anything. But half of what the reviewer's said sounds like he's just. Trying to act smart, really. I see the same thing with a few of my friends. I get teh feeling that if it weren't using the Hellblazer name, it'd be a piece of okay, but not good fluff.

*grins* It might be worth getting you pissed as (even if that tends to be expensive. You've got far too high an alcohol tolerance. *g*) and then recording your reaction to it.

I saw Harry Potter a) drunk and b) because that's what everyone else wanted to see and I wanted to hang with my friends.

I'll see what David and Margaret have to see about it as a movie (since I doubt either is a Hellblazer fan), but I'm really doubtful I'll waste the money on this piece of dreck.

Mind you, I haven't seen The Hulk, Daredevil, Troy, Electra or Van Helsing either. Guess that makes me a movie wanker.

I am thinking of catching The House Of Flying Daggers tonight at the George if it's playing at a reasonable time after work, tho'. That one looks much better - lots of shiny action without the wank associated with Keanu trying to pretend he's making something out there and meaningful (there's an interview with him that says as much, don't have it on me right now).

*nods* Sorry about the teasing, dude. The only one of those others I've seen is Troy and that was because it was a group of us going.

I'd live to see House of Flying Daggers, but I can't even think about heading down and joining you since I've got the Latin Exam of DOOM on tomorrow afternoo0n. :)

I knew you had Latin which is why I didn't email you and ask if you wanted to come. Besides, it was a spur of the moment decision this morning when I got up. "Hmm, think I'll see if the George is playing that and go see it on the way home." Whee, spontenaity!

As for the teasing... well, it's a sign of how much you guys mean to me that I did sit through those two movies. With minimal bitching out loud, I might add. But I don't make a habit of paying movie prices to see crap. ;)

Thanks. I went to training and then to the pub with Phil and a couple of others, after, instead. What is it with people called Phil and taking you to the pub and being a beer-inducing influence?

Define "complex". John Constantine is the Arthur Dent of characters, without any of the redeeming qualities. Take any guy off the street, rough him up a bit, hand him a trenchcoat and a pack of cigarettes and get him to say "bloody" a lot and be an utter shit and voila - Constantine.

We've had this discussion before, Matt*wry grin*, and I know better than to convince you otherwise, but my opinion? It depends on which writer's version of Constantine you're talking about, for one. Ellis' version kind of bugs me, but then again, I'm a Delano fangirl. But the very fact he is a sort of everyman character, in some extraordinary circumstances, is part of the appeal for me. And he is complex. unlike some other comic book protangonists, he doesn't have a stock standard answer to every problem, and doesn't react the same way every time. He makes mistakes, bloody awful ones, can be an utter prick, but despite that still has moments that make you realise he's not a complete evil bastard. He's as human as the rest of us, and that makes him complex, at least to me. And it's the shades of grey and dodgy ethics that the movie seems to have dumped in favour of making another Good -v- Evil Hollywood blockbuster.

Just in case you were curious...

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It's more than Keanu...

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