That was non-non-non-non-non-NON-Heinous!

Constantine... Where to begin? I will, first off, confess to not having read the comic the film is based on, Vertigo always seemed to have too much pretentious psuedo-goth posturing for me, and so I had the pleasure of watching without knowing how badly the original material was mauled. However, it also meant that the plot made very little sense. Perhaps if I was familiar with the character and background I would understand many of the plot devices and gravity defying leaps of faith that the film requires the audience to accept. I am forced to resort to SPOILERS here. Constantine has to go to Hell, how does he do that? He sits on a chair with his feet in a bucket of water, staring at a cat... seriously. Later on, when the fairly straightforward plot is still eluding our anti-hero, he sits on a magic electric chair and gets electrocuted back to Hell, where for some reason he witnesses the events at the start of the film, giving him all the knowledge he needs to win the day (exactly why this particular electric chair allows him to do this is explained through the fact that many have died in it, obviously marking it as unique in the pantheon of instruments of DEATH). Constantine's sidekick states that in order to kill so many demons they would need one of two special holy crosses and, yep you got it, he just happens to have one of them. Finally and most maddeningly, when the writers managed to paint themselves into a corner by the finale they resort to simply having Satan come up and stop it all, admittedly the concept isn't bad, but the way it is handled is just plain annoying. Satan is presented as smart and sensible enough to have known of, and stopped the whole thing earlier, the portrayal of the prince of darkness is also just too campy for a film which takes itself so seriously. The special effects are just not up to the standard we as an audience are now expecting from our "big" films. In all its not the worst film ever **COUGHCATWOMANCOUGH** but really I had hoped for so much more when the story first surfaced... So it goes.

Today I shall purge the taint of Constantine by seenig The Machinist or Melinda and Melinda, then its off to Judas Priest and The Scorpions... Rock on indeed.

TTFN