Constantine

Saturday night, we watched Keanu Reeves star as a black-clad hero with possibly even more problems than Neo. I liked it a fair amount, the wife not as much. It started strong, with a horror feel that owed a lot to The Exorcist. The first hour was pretty engrossing, but the movie started to drag during the second hour, as it turned more into an action flick. Where we differed was on the ending sequences. I thought they were good enough to redeem the slowdown in the middle, whereas my wife felt it never recaptured the promise of the beginning. There were some good performances, though. I thought the guy who played the devil was really good, as he was playing the foreign hit man in Fargo and one of the nihilists in The Big Lebowski. Speaking of Lebowski, Steve Buscemi would have fit right into this movie. They may have missed the boat not including him. Constantine's sidekick was entertaining as well. One other surprise in the movie was Gavin Rossdale of Bush. I didn't realize he acted. Probably a good thing too, since Bush is pretty much toast. Overall, I would recommend this movie more as a dark action picture more than a horror movie. There are some pretty good scary scenes in the beginning, but the rest of the movie relies on only a couple of things popping out randomly to get its scares. So I would say, as my wife's best friend commented, Constantine is pretty entertaining as long as you come into it with realistically low expectations.