It’s been many years since John Constantine first wandered into the pages of Alan Moore’s run of
Swamp Thing and to eventually become the longest running
Vertigo
title and certainly one of the most popular. His take no shit from any
tosser of demon attitude as well as his very questionable moral
standings has made him easily the most interesting characters to appear
in comic books and no small reason for his popularity. In 2005 Warner
Brothers brought
Constantine to the big screen but
instead of a smart ass Britt working the occult side of London England
we were saddled with Keanu Reeves fighting demons in Los Angles, though
not a terrible movie it certainly was a little disheartening to fans of
the comic.
Flash forward to 2014 and another attempt to bring Constantine to life only this time to the small screen. Shows like
Supernatural and
American Horror Story
have proven there is a market for horror on television and that the
only danger is on how far the show runners are willing or able to go. As
a network show there are definite limitations so you’re not going to
see the gore and sexuality of say something like you get in an episode
of
Penny Dreadful, but already in the pilot we see that this
Constantine is pretty watered down even by regular television standards.
The pilot was directed by
Neil Marshall so that gave us some hope but as
David Goyer is also attached as one of the writers that hope faded rather quickly. The show opens with John Constantine (
Matt Ryan)
having committed himself to a hospital for the mentally ill for the
apparent purpose of having the medical field prove to him that demons
don’t exist. You see something really bad went down resulting in a young
girl being yanked down to hell were her soul is now damned forever and I
guess Constantine would rather think himself crazy than culpable. This
is pretty idiotic. Not that a hero with a tortured has dark past that he
wants to forget, no that is pretty standard stuff, but burying your
head in the sand via nuthouse is just stupid. It makes Constantine out
to be either a coward or stupid…or both.
Just as he is settling into group therapy he is yanked out of
retirement by a possessed patient, a woman possessed by the soul of dead
friend of Constantine’s. It seems this dead friend has a daughter that
is in danger; a nasty demon from the inner circle of Hell is after her.
“Noooooooooooo!”
She is of course in the United States so good all John Constantine
must cross the Atlantic and save the Network a bundle on shooting
locations. The damsel in question is Liv Aberdine (
Lucy Griffiths)
and our introduction to her is watching her pull a can of pepper spray
on Constantine after she was almost swallowed by a fiery sink hole. Yeah
it’s a stupid as it sounds, you see while leaving work her car starts
acting up before dying completely, then the power goes out in the
parking lot, next the ground begins to cracking open and then suddenly
collapsing into a huge fiery pit and that is when Constantine shows up
in a cab and her reaction is to aim a can of pepper spray at him as if
he could somehow be responsible for these events. This is classic lazy
screenwriting 101. False conflict is not dramatic Mister Goyer, it’s
just lame.
“I find dead people.”
So it seems that Liv has inherited some of her father’s abilities and
with a magical pendant in hand she can see that dead and because of
this some high ranking demon wants her dead. With the help of cabbie an
apparently immortal Chas Chandler (
Charles Halford) Constantine must do battle with the forces of Hell all the while being harassed by the angel Manny (
Harold Perrineau) who wants Constantine’s’ help in the coming apocalypse. Is it me or is Manny a really stupid name for an angel?
“I’m the angel on your shoulder.”
So that’s the set-up for the show, will helping the angels fight the
legions of Hell save John’s soul which apparently got damned for his
failure to save the little girl? Will Liv use her abilities as a
scrivener to help in Constantine’s fight? Will the show’s producers
allow John Constantine to light up a cigarette or are we stuck watching
him constantly play with his fucking lighter? Will any or all of these
questions be answered before this show is cancelled?
Answer: Doubtful.
“Flame on!”
Now the show isn’t without merit, Matt Ryan does a fine job with the
script given, the look of the show is decent and the effects around the
magic side of things are excellent, if only it all just didn’t seem so
tepid. John Constantine is suppose to be a right bastard and this show
has given us a Diet Coke version of him with a clichéd backstory and
uninteresting supporting cast. Of course this is just the pilot so who
knows maybe they’ll turn it around before it joins the ranks of the
damned.
Constantine (2014)
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