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camwynI was persuaded to watch the trailer last night by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pandoras_closet, despite the screaming of my self-preservation instinct.
I still don't believe in the movie. The problem is not that Keanu is bad. The problem is that he is completely unconvincing. He's the wrong colour, skin and hair and eyes alike. He looks too clean. He dresses wrong (I don't remember seeing anything that qualified as The Coat). He sounds wrong, naturally. He didn't even look like he knew what to do with his cigarette! It was completely impossible to believe that the guy I was looking at was in any way representative of, or even related to, the Right King of All Bastards. You might as well cast Tom Felton as Othello and expect me to believe I was looking at the Moor of Venice.
If you're going to cast an American in the part, and move the story to the States, at least have the decency to translate the atmosphere, too. America can't match the sense of Ancient Dreadfulness that hangs over Constantine's Britain; we shouldn't even try. But the sense of corrosive, pervasive promise-gone-to-rot that can be found in your finer film noir and hardboiled detective stories might just be our analogue. Find an actor who's suited to the part, not someone who got an honourary award for best action movie star at the World Stunt Awards. (I have nothing against action or stunt work, but it's not exactly the same thing as what John does, now is it.) Get a decent writer. Lock the director down in front of The Maltese Falcon and Touch of Evil and things like that for a fortnight or two. Then let them do it. Translate it properly into the American milieu and it might have a chance.
But don't ask me to believe in Keanu, because it can't be done.
pandoras_closet, despite the screaming of my self-preservation instinct.I still don't believe in the movie. The problem is not that Keanu is bad. The problem is that he is completely unconvincing. He's the wrong colour, skin and hair and eyes alike. He looks too clean. He dresses wrong (I don't remember seeing anything that qualified as The Coat). He sounds wrong, naturally. He didn't even look like he knew what to do with his cigarette! It was completely impossible to believe that the guy I was looking at was in any way representative of, or even related to, the Right King of All Bastards. You might as well cast Tom Felton as Othello and expect me to believe I was looking at the Moor of Venice.
If you're going to cast an American in the part, and move the story to the States, at least have the decency to translate the atmosphere, too. America can't match the sense of Ancient Dreadfulness that hangs over Constantine's Britain; we shouldn't even try. But the sense of corrosive, pervasive promise-gone-to-rot that can be found in your finer film noir and hardboiled detective stories might just be our analogue. Find an actor who's suited to the part, not someone who got an honourary award for best action movie star at the World Stunt Awards. (I have nothing against action or stunt work, but it's not exactly the same thing as what John does, now is it.) Get a decent writer. Lock the director down in front of The Maltese Falcon and Touch of Evil and things like that for a fortnight or two. Then let them do it. Translate it properly into the American milieu and it might have a chance.
But don't ask me to believe in Keanu, because it can't be done.
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Date: 2004-05-28 07:23 am (UTC)Someone deserves a very rude postcard from Perth.
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Date: 2004-05-28 07:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-28 07:27 am (UTC)I'm hoping that eventually he'll disappear.
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Date: 2004-05-28 07:34 am (UTC)The thing that kills me is there is an actor out there who would be a perfect John. James Marsters would have been the perfect choice. Anyone who saw him as Spike would agree with me. AND he can do a decent British accent. AND he looks like Constantine. AND he can act. So it really bothers me that they've wasted the character in this movie.
Gah. Makes me what to throw things.
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Date: 2004-05-28 07:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-28 07:47 am (UTC)"They didn't call it Hellblazer. I don't have to believe in it. They didn't call it Hellblazer. It doesn't count."
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Date: 2004-05-28 07:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-28 07:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-28 08:08 am (UTC)That said, I'm wrathful about this movie. I adore John Constantine, and any jackass who claims that Keanu will bring the right "naive innocence" to the role hasn't read the fucking comics. Constantine is no longer naive, if he EVER was, nor is he innocent. (Ditto.) The man was practically born hanging onto a wire coat hanger, according to the comic. Naive and innocent? HELL no.
But, whoever said James Marsters would make a great Constantine...give that man a cookie! He hit the nail on the head with that one.
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Date: 2004-05-28 08:18 am (UTC)Didn't the character sort of strangle his unborn twin brother with his own umbilical cord? (Or did they ultimately pin that on his dad?)
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Date: 2004-05-28 08:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-28 08:27 am (UTC)If they had wanted to americanize him, they should have used either William H. Macy or, god help us all, Lance "My Eyes Have Seen Horrors You CAnnot Imagine" Henrikson.
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Date: 2004-05-28 08:29 am (UTC)"Tom Felton as Othello". Hee hee hee.
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Date: 2004-05-28 08:30 am (UTC)Excuse me?
Did I just see John Constantine and naive innocence in the same sentence? When it didn't involve Constantine forcing someone else to /lose/ their innocence?
I don't have to watch this. Really, I don't.
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Date: 2004-05-28 08:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-28 08:41 am (UTC)"John Constantine had a brother. A twin brother, who died along with Mary Constantine as she gave birth to John. It's possible that John may even have killed his brother in his mother's womb, strangling him with his umbilical cord.
In another world, it was John who died and his brother that survived. This Constantine, who also bore the name John, was the opposite of his brother - he grew to become a powerful and great Magus - when he confronted hell itself in Newcastle he gave his arm and saved Astra's soul.
The Golden Boy and John saw images of each other and the Golden Boy was afraid of his other self. He tried to kill his brother and set in course a sequence of events which led to the two combining their souls."
According to the section about Thomas Constantine, however:
"John later met his father in hell, were he learned that he actually tried to abort both his children - which is why both Mary and The Golden Boy died."
I wouldn't call John Constantine naive or innocent, at any rate. This is a guy who sold his soul to three different lords of Hell and orchestrated the fall of the Archangel Gabriel.
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Date: 2004-05-28 08:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-28 09:24 am (UTC)John wouldn't even visit California on a dare. (Maybe to kick The First in the nads but he'd leave ASAP)
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Date: 2004-05-28 09:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-28 09:26 am (UTC)Yes, I know that was confusing
In X-Men, it's revealed EVERYONE and EVERYTHING has an evil twin. Xaiver's managed to manifest, though. Somehow. And fetusXaiver tried to strangle her with the cord. There was more vagueness, then it was hinted that EvilXaiver was flushed down the crapper and clung to a sewer wall for thirty years.
*drool*
Date: 2004-05-28 09:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-28 09:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-28 09:54 am (UTC)"There's a Constantine movie coming out? Ooh! I hadn't even heard of it; I wonder if they'll do it right?"
"...It's starring Keanu? Oh."
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Date: 2004-05-28 09:56 am (UTC)I'm going to retreat into my happy little fantasy world in which he's starring and the Keanu movie doesn't exist, 'kay?
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Date: 2004-05-28 10:02 am (UTC)...
Because I just haven't had enough of that "NOOOOOO! How could they!?" feeling lately.