Constantine - A Rant

clive

clive

Hey, I don't rant often, but I really need to get something off my chest. And, just so there is no misunderstanding I am not anti-American, even though it's very fashionable in the UK right now. In fact I both love and admire you Yanks (and Texans)

That said, when is Hollywood going to stop turning English characters into American ones. John Constantine was written as a blonde, 42 year old, English alcoholic. He never uses guns and is about as far from Keanu Reeves as it is possible to get. Am I the only person who finds the Keanufication of this character offensive? Isn't it bad enough that Hollywood constantly rewrites history (US navy discovering the enigma machine in U114, when it was British Marines or the complete lack of non-American troops in Saving Private Ryan). :grumpy:

When you think about it Hollywood is really patronising all you American movie goers, they believe that you aren't sophisticated enough to cope with heroes who don't talk like you or with any history that doesn't show you as the central characters. I'm sure that you believe that you deserve better than that. That's why sometime in the next five years I'm going to make a historically correct western with European actors only, Irish, English, Dutch, French and Germans. :rolleyes:
 
I literally read this review in The Onion about 5 minutes before I saw your post. It seems you two are on the same page:

Constantine
Director: Francis Lawrence (R, 121 min.)
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Tilda Swinton


Why is Hollywood so determined to mess with success? Given a long-running, highly celebrated book, comic, or television franchise to adapt, why would a producer say, "Sure, The Da Vinci Code sold millions of copies, but moviegoers don't wanna watch some guy solving a mystery with old European art. Couldn't we make him a hot chick, like Lara Croft? And put her in Vegas? Maybe she could find her clues in today's hottest hip-hop tracks. And could we give her a hot bisexual sidekick? And a cute dog?"

Ask the filmmakers behind Constantine, a comic-book adaptation that chucks most of its source material out the window during the opening act, replacing it with a complicated but undeveloped mythology and the most generic leading man possible. As presented in more than 200 issues of the cult-hit comic Hellblazer, John Constantine is a wry conman with no extraordinary abilities beyond the gift of gab and a thorough versing in the occult. He was conceived as a quintessential Londoner modeled after Sting, all spiky blonde hair and bitter smirk. Constantine re-imagines him as a stone-faced, charisma-free supernatural superhero, a Los Angeles exorcist with magical special-effects-generating powers and the grim demeanor of an noir gumshoe. As played by Keanu Reeves, he's The Matrix's Neo in God-mode and in a perpetual snit.

A plotline drawn from various severely retreaded Hellblazer story arcs has Reeves facing his own mortality: Lung cancer has condemned him to the grave, and a long-ago suicide attempt has condemned him to hell. Having visited the place, he knows what he'd be in for, so he attempts to get to heaven by fighting hellspawn and bullying the half-breed angel Gabriel (Tilda Swinton). Meanwhile, he's caught up in the throes of an incipient demon invasion, which is tied to a mystical artifact and an ingénue cop (Rachel Weisz) with a mysteriously dead sister. The plot doesn't so much unfold as sprawl in all directions, with occasional pauses for bare-bones exposition and no pauses to fill in the plot holes, but first-time feature director Francis Lawrence at least knows Reeves' limits, and pegs the film on as much demon combat and as little dialogue as possible.

Still, while Constantine works reasonably well as an energetic effects-fest like Hellboy or Van Helsing, virtually anyone but Reeves would have made a better John Constantine. Swinton is terrific, Holes' Shia LaBeouf makes the most of a thankless role as Reeves' hapless apprentice, and even Weisz at least seems to believe in her character, but Reeves is a wooden icon where the story demands a complex and sympathetic figure. His rigid delivery makes Constantine's occult backstory sound pretentious and silly, and converts Constantine himself into a repressed cipher. The film's biggest revision isn't in not making him blonde, or not making him British. It's in not making him human. —Tasha Robinson
 
Hey, I don't rant often, but I really need to get something off my chest
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I believe you are entitled to rant, Clive. You've moderated wisely, so anytime you post a 'rant' we can interpret your opinion as a very fair one.

In fact I both love and admire you Yanks (and Texans)
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Native Minnesotans need special love, tooooo. I mean, at least we provided the world with Dylan, Keillor, Garland, and the Coen Brothers.

When you think about it Hollywood is really patronising all you American movie goers, they believe that you aren't sophisticated enough to cope with heroes who don't talk like you or with any history that doesn't show you as the central characters
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Sooo true...but I believe that mindset prevails throughout most industry here.
 
...Just like all industries, the film industry has it's share of idiots. I would say that Hollywood tries to make movies that are safe...that would be guaranteed to make money...but I don't even see THAT as the case. They're just dumb. And they assume we are dumb too. They see what's going on in pop culture and try to squeeze every penny they can out of it. They know what our culture will eat up. Hence Keanu Reeves.

...but they are just dumb. If they would think outside the box a little bit, not only would the movies be better, but they would make much more money. Take Lord of The Rings. No scantily clad women. No American characters. No hip hop. Made Billions.

I just want to add that if keanu had blonde hair and could do a british accent...and the story took place in the UK...it wouldn't be as infuriating. BUT since Keanu can only play Keanu, I guess they had to adjust. Clive may disagree, but that's my take.
 
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Clive, don't you realize that Keanu Reeves has the acting ability to play a blonde 42 year old British alcoholic?
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Yeah, but he's so skilled it comes across as a dark haired LA person, yeap, that's seriously post modern acting :lol:
 
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