As I said in my previous movie review, comic-book-based movies expose the chink in my geek facade. Constantine, like Hellboy, made me wish I had more comic-book exposure in my youth. Although, to be fair, you’d probably get a black eye if you stood in a comic book shop and referred to this as a “comic book”. There’s nothing comic about “Hellblazer”, the graphic novel on which Constantine is based. It’s a graphic novel, see, and that’s what you call comic books that are written for people who want to feel grown up even though they are still reading comic books. Graphic novels are graphic and are not for kids. (See also: Sin City.)

As with most movies in this genre, Constantine has raised the ire of Hellblazer fans. The reviews on imdb are scathing. But if you’ve never heard of Hellblazer, then you have no idea what kind of a man John Constantine is supposed to be and thus no reason to hate Keanu Reeves for not being it. (It’s pretty easy to hate Keanu Reeves for not being a real actor, but that’s neither here nor there. He hasn’t played a believable character since Bill and Ted.)

Constantine is dark. Very dark. Bleak. It’s as far from a feel-good movie as you can get. Yet, it’s still a great movie. There’s enough mystery to keep you thinking. The special effects are off the chart. And the theme of the movie is truly thought provoking.

That’s not to say it’s without faults. The writing and plot could have been better and… well… then there’s Keanu. The rest of the cast does a good job, making his performance that much more flat.

The thing that sold me the most on this movie was the theme. Being a Christian, it’s good to be reminded that demons and angels are real and they are here, all around us, fighting a war… THE war …and that just because we can’t see them, doesn’t make us any less involved. We are the battle ground upon which the war if fought. If you’re looking for sound doctrine and Biblical correctness, you’ll have to look somewhere other than Hollywood, but if you already know the doctrine (and can excuse a movie for not getting it quite right), I strongly recommend this movie to get you back into the warrior’s frame of mind.

Constantine was good enough that I was able to see past what was wrong with it and enjoy the story. And the story was good enough to remind me that my faith is not just a badge or a label. It’s what I am. And besides all that, it made me actually want to read the graphic novel, which in itself is worth four grins.

I have come to realize that, as much as I love being a geek, I’m not a very good one. I’m consistently two years behind the latest geek hardware. I’ve never actually read any graphic novels or fantasy fiction (outside of Tolkien). I never actually played Dungeons & Dragons. Thus I am at a disadvantage when I join ranks with geeks of more pure lineage. This becomes especially apparent around comic-book-based movies.

I’ve heard lots of chatter about how, even though all three X-Men movies were extremely entertaining, they offended many comic book purists. I loved Hellboy, but I wasn’t even sure it was based on a comic until I watched the DVD extras.

With that said, I would guess that fans of the F4 comic books would hate this movie. It contains much more Hollywood cliche that I expected. While I admit, I’ve never even seen a real F4 comic book, I can’t imagine that any main-stream comic would be as campy. The script spends a lot of time (and by “a lot”, I mean 3/4 of the movie) trying to flesh out the characters. A better writer could have fully developed the characters in five minutes. Instead, we get fifty.

Other parts of the script left me honestly puzzled. In any comic book flick, one must be willing to step a bit outside of reality, but Fantastic 4 goes a step beyond and asks you to step outside of common sense. Example: To get past a police blockade, Sue (the invisible girl) has to take off her clothes and sneak by. This sets up a predictable gag, but after the gag is had, we find the whole team inside the police blockade. Umm… Exactly how did her being invisible (and naked) get the other guys in? There too many similar plot holes to list here, but you get the idea.

The effects were top-notch. Unfortunately, 90% of the effects shots were in the trailer, so rather than thinking, “Ooh! That was cool,” I thought, “Oh, I remember that from the commercials.”

In the end, F4 felt more like a poorly done sci-fi movie, than a well done comic book movie. Maybe it’s because the bar has been set so high in this genre, but that doesn’t change the fact that this movie came up a little short. I didn’t hate it, but if I’d paid $8 to see it, I might have. I give it two grins.