movie review - Constantine
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
I watched this with The Boy for movie night. I believe it was on his "bucket list" poster of 100 movies.
This is at least my third viewing of this movie and I have to say it keeps growing on me. I've been studying story-telling for a long time, and I have to say that I'm developing more and more of an appreciation for certain movies that just get so much right. Constantine, possibly the best comic book adaptation to the large screen, is one of these. Based on the Hellblazer comics from decades ago, it features a human who is doomed to an eternity in hell due to an attempted suicide. He's been trying, as various .. entities point out in the story to "buy his way into Heaven" by fighting Satan and his teeming minions.
Just about everything in this movie is right. The flawless casting and note-perfect characters. The frequently appalling sets. The tight plot and nineties detached dialog. The sense of doom that pervades everyone working with Constantine on his mission. I mean it goes on and on, I can't think of any waste or fat in this thing, and the I'll say it again every single person in this left nothing behind.
Just to highlight what I mean, the thing comes to a climax with this simply incredible scene.
This cannot be improved. The horrors of the plot are resolved with such an economy and precision it's almost too much. So many details are so right, and the ease at which the situation allows one thing after another to be resolved is simply amazing.A favorite.