Constantine is epitomized by a scene near the end where John Constantine ascends into heaven while giving the finger to Lucifer. Constantine is classic fan-boy fiction from a religious perspective. Much like Hellboy, Constantine (Keanu Reeves) is a character who is ultimately good, yet as dark and dirty as can be on the side.

Constantine is a smoking, trench-coat wearing exorcist who’s doomed to hell because of a past murder, but is trying to gain back god’s good graces by casting out ugly demons. He’s apparently the best exorcist in town, but things get hairy when Satan’s son starts trying to break through to the human plane.

Constantine meets up with Angela (Rachel Weisz), whose twin sister has inexplicably committed suicide and who, for some reason explained but not clarified, is the “Mary” who Satan (Peter Stormare) plans to use to bring about his son. Constantine has to travel through hell to find Angela’s sister, prevent Satan’s son from coming forth, as well as take care of a lot of other ugly business in the mean time.

Reeves has received a lot of criticism for his performance, as he frequently does, but he actually played a great John Constantine. Jon Popick thought that Reeves was parodying himself, but the fact is that it just happens to be that Constantine’s character called for the sort of gruff, sarcastic, yet introverted persona that Reeves often plays.

Constantine’s theology is interesting. It’s based in a Catholic world, with variations. There’s apparently some sort of Yin-Yang balance to heaven and hell in the universe, but I appreciate the fact that Constantine must earn his way back to heaven with genuine self-sacrifice as opposed to the potentially self seeking demon slaying (even if that self-sacrifice comes in a single decision.) Constantine is also a good anti-smoking ad.

For all its positive religious tones, Constantine never reaches the spiritual heights of the likes of the first Matrix. Its religiosity is contrived and comic-booky, which is just fine for a comic book movie. But Constantine feels like it misses a lot of opportunities to be really great. A lot of peripherally unnecessary characters, an excess of background information and an underdeveloped climax hold the film down.

Based on the Hellblazer comics, Constantine tears pages out of The Exorcist, with its amplified possessions, Blade, with its zombified demons who are blown away with holy shotguns, and even Dogma, with its psychotic, winged, half-angel. Thus, as original as Constantine’s ideas are, they never really feel fresh.