I haven’t read a single Hellblazer comics so I can say I won’t be biased on this review wether it would be faithful to the comicbook hero. But I may be biased with the concept of the movie regarding heaven and hell and the world we live in. I may not share the same opinion with most reviews (believe me a lot think that this is another disappointment comics-to-movies book), but there is something about the movie that I did enjoy.
Just a short summary: Frightened by what he sees due to his gift/curse, John Constantine (Keanu Reeves) committed suicide when he was young. And as doctrine states, once you die by killing yourself, you go straight to hell. Now a chain smoker and demon exorcist, he is trying to buy himself a way to heaven by exorcising demons back to hell. But things get a lot more interesting/ complicated with the recovery of the “Spear of Destiny”, a mysterious suicide, and an evil plot by the son of lucifer himself against his father to crossover to the world of man.
In the age of the “Da Vinci Code”, I think it was timely to show a movie like this to the public where people are more open in their belief. For this movie had radical concepts that would make a lot of devout believers scream blasphemy. Good thing though that no film reels where burned after people saw what happened to Angel Gabriel in the end. Perhaps because it was just a work of fiction, but fiction or not, like the matrix, the movie had a lot of ideas and concepts taken from esoteric and occult philosophies. Ok let’s forget about the plot a little and even on the average acting and the eye candy effects, there are still a lot to talk about here. Man even my barber was telling me how amused he was finding that there’s more chapter in the Corinthians that was printed on the common Bible. I guess my point is, despite wether people find the movie rotten or amusing, the concepts there are still talked about after the credits have rolled. And that people are more open now with these concepts.
I was also amused at the beginning how a demon/ child would speak tagalog “Papatayin namin sya!” I guess the writer was aware that spirit posession is popular in our culture because of our strong catholic background. So was the movie great? For my taste it’s ok. It doesn’t set a new standard or anything, it even made me yawn at some parts, but still, some things intrigued me. If you got a few bucks to spare watch it. But if you think that watching it may just offend your firm belief, still watch it. It’s only fiction.
Ferdz Decena is an award-winning travel photographer, writer and blogger. His works has found print in publications such as Singapore Airlines’s Silver Kris, Philippine Airlines’ Mabuhay, Cebu Pacific’s Smile and Seair InFlight. He has also lent his expertise to various organizations like the Oceana Philippines, Lopez Group Foundation, Save the Children and World Vision, contributing quality images for their marketing materials.
