My reaction to this movie was pretty solid as I left in the theater. No it wasn't a thumbs up, and no, it wasn't a thumbs down. The thumb was planted firmly in the middle. That's a shame too, as I had been looking forward to this. The trailers looked good, and it seemed to be a role that was right up Keanu Reeve's ally. The question is what went wrong? But before we can get into that we must first give some examination to what was put up on the screen.

The driving idea behind the film is that John Constantine is essentially a soldier in the war between heaven and hell. He is able to see through the world that has been pulled over our eyes, fighting the demons of a past and for an uncertain future. This particular chapter involves the Constantine helping out a young woman detective who is investigating the apparent suicide of her twin sister. This leads to a discovery of a loophole in the battle rules between God and Lucifer that would allow Lucifer's son to cross over onto our plane of existence, thus upsetting the balance in favor of the dark forces of Hell. Actually, I think it is a bit more convoluted than that, but that is the general idea.

It is based on the DC/Vertigo comic book Hellblazer, with which I am completely unfamiliar with, save that I have heard of it before and seen the title on the shelf, but have never picked up. From what I have learned of late, it is a dark tale of the battle between good and evil and the line that Constantine treads while attempting to "purchase" his way into heaven in exchange for a deed that has essentially cut him off. That is all I knew going in. The concept is not entirely new, but the seed is there to make a compelling film, that could be paired up with the ability to create incredible visuals.

There are some interesting casting choices to fill the two leads. To play our lead role we have Keanu Reeves as John Constantine, whose wooden acting style would seem to be a perfect fit for our loner hero. Sadly it just seems like a variation on Neo. I guess the story doesn't help with all the religious overtones and plot mumbo jumbo. I admit that, most of the time, I like Reeves. He puts himself out there in many different roles, and at least tries. This time around, he seems to be playing it safe here or he hasn't been able to completely come out of the Neo character yet. On the other side we have Rachel Weisz, who is probably best known for her role in the two Mummy films. She plays two roles here, Angela and Isabel Dodson. Angela is a detective whose twin sister committed suicide, although she has serious doubts as to the real circumstances. She is a very good actress, but seems somehow flat here, I can't quite put my finger on the problem, but the performance just seems to be off.