Constantine was born with a psychic ability to see the half-breed demons and angels that live on earth and look just like humans to everyone else, and tortured by this ability as a kid, he eventually tried to commit suicide in his teens. Unluckily for him, he was successful, if only for a few seconds before paramedics brought him back to life. That was long enough to qualify as a mortal sin though, and he's since spent his adult life killing demons and trying to earn enough brownie points to save himself from hell. It's not going so well thus far, since as an angel tells him, all of his actions are selfish. He's not performing exorcisms to help others; he's doing it to try and boost his own fortunes, and until he learns something about self-sacrifice and noble actions, he won't make a dent in his damnation.  There is some urgency to his quest too, since he's been a pack and a half smoker since he was 13, and he now has terminal lung cancer; bad enough that he regularly coughs up blood and has maybe a year to live. Worse yet, his efforts to get into heaven may be failing, but he's done enough to earn the enmity of Satan, and it's said that his is the one soul Lucifer would come to earth to claim personally.

Also, when you see Constantine stay through the credits; there's a last little scene which is worth seeing and adds something to the mythology of the movie. It helps to have someone to talk to while you're being bored by 8 minutes of scrolling names, though. Boring credits too, just white text on black background, with music. No special effects or outtakes or pictures of any kind.

This review contains no spoilers until the very end, when I'll say it's spoiler time, and then discuss every bit of the plot, including the very ending. You should stop reading before then, if you've got any interest in seeing this movie and enjoying the plot surprises.

To the scores.

Constantine
Script/Story: 7
Acting/Casting: 6
Action: 6
Humor: 6
Suspense: 5
Eye Candy: 9
Fun Factor: 6
Replayability: 7
Must See on the Bigscreen: 7
Overall: 8

I was quite surprised how much I liked this film. I expected it to be mediocre occult silliness, with some good scenes and some cool demons, but burdened by deadly bad "acting" by Keanu and a no-doubt stupid plot.  As it turned out, I didn't mind Keanu at all, the plot was quite clever and tricky, and while the action wasn't that great, I loved the mythology of it all, and the visuals were simply glorious. There were at least half a dozen sequences that I watched with my mouth open and a "That is so fucking cool." thought running through my head.

It's not a masterpiece; the pace is too slow at times and some things don't really make any sense, but if you can suspend your disbelief and go with the occult Bible stuff and buy into the mythology of the movie's world, it's a fascinating story with a great look to it and tolerable acting and action.  You really have to like the concept though, with the demons on earth and holy trinkets and invisible spirits, and so on. Most of the critics aren't; the movie is only 45% positive out of 125 reviews on RT, but I enjoyed it quite a bit and would go see it again tomorrow, if I had the time.

The odd thing is that even with nearly 100 negative reviews to choose from, I don't get much of a sense of why they didn't like it. They talk about the plot, or the visuals, or Keanu's acting style, but don't really say what's wrong with any of those things. It's as if simply stating that they were what they were is an excuse for giving the movie a poor score. This one might really be in the eye of the beholder, since I really liked most of the things other critics seem to be saying sucked.

I have more comments, but they lack form, so I'll just elaborate on the scores a bit before the plot-related spoiler conclusion.

Script/Story: 7
I thought the story and plot were quite clever and made sense in the end, through numerous twists and turns. On the other hand, lots of critics have said they hated the story, or that it didn't make any sense. Hate is an option, but IMHO, anyone who says it didn't make sense was just not paying attention. I know nothing of the comic, and I've got no religious or superstitious beliefs to sway me towards or away from believing in the movie's Christian mythology, but I had no trouble suspending disbelief and having fun with this film. Also, I'm generally very picky about plot loopholes and errors, and while there was some unlikely stuff, on the whole Constantine made sense and was internally-consistent, even with zero knowledge of the source material. (Something you can not say for a lot of adaptations; Harry Potter 3, for instance.)

Acting/Casting: 6
I expected to hate Keanu in this roll, but he was fine. True, Constantine as portrayed by Keanu is the same silent, brooding lump every character played by Keanu since Speed (I hated his character in that movie.) has been, but it worked well enough in this roll. After all, the guy's every waking thought is about his own impending mortality and the eternity in hell that awaits him; is he supposed to be happy?

Action: 6
I've said this is an action movie a few times thus far, but I should clarify that. Or correct it, since it's not an action movie. It's got some action sequences, but not many, and the ones that are in it are not car chases or fist fights or the typical action stuff. The "action" is mostly cerebral and occult in nature, with Constantine pulling a demon out of a girl and imprisoning it in a mirror, or Constantine doing something cool to send his consciousness to hell. As such, this score is a bit conflicted. There's really not very much action, in terms of fighting or running, and what there is (some battles against demons) isn't all that great. However the other stuff, which isn't conversation but isn't quite action, is awesome. I loved all the occult stuff, the demon stuff, the exorcism stuff, etc. Despite the fact that I was happy with almost everything in the film, this score isn't that high because if you go in expecting traditional fight/chase action scenes, you'll be disappointed.

Humor: 6
Unexpected score here, since while it's not a comedy, it's definitely got some funny moments. There were at least half a dozen moments when the audience laughed out loud, and while none of them were brilliantly-integrated as mood breakers, they did spice up the conversation scenes. 

Suspense: 5
I only use this rating category on movies that try to be suspenseful, and while this film wasn't very suspenseful, it wasn't really trying to be. It could have been, with better or different direction, and I think that's one thing a number of critics are bothered by, though they don't articulate it. The exorcisms and demon battles are interesting, but they are not "Oh my god what if the demon breaks through!" moments, and that's why this score isn't very high. 

Eye Candy: 9
Definitely my favorite aspect of the film. The special effects sequences and visions of demons and angels in our world, and especially the geography and denizens of hell were just colossally cool. If you remember the way the world looked all streaky and flowing and windy when Frodo wore the ring in LotR, Hell looks a bit like that in Constantine. As if there is a perpetual high wind, and everything it blows into is forever disintegrating, without ever actually losing any mass. The brief clips of it in the trailers do not in any way do it justice, and these visuals are responsible for about 95% of my "see it in theaters" score.

Fun Factor: 6
I enjoyed it a lot, but it's not really a fun movie. You couldn't just throw in the DVD and watch 5 minutes and random and enjoy them. Of course very few films are, but Constantine is more about the overall viewing experience from start to finish.

Replayability: 7
I want to see it again, and I would appreciate some early parts more now that I know the whole twisty plot, but this score is almost entirely based on me liking the movie a lot and it being dense enough to offer up some new pleasures on a second or third viewing.

Must See on the Bigscreen: 7
I don't often include this rating either, and while no more than 5% of this movie is going to be better on the big screen than it would be on your TV, I'm glad I saw it all full size first.

Overall: 8
I am honestly shocked that I'm giving this one more than about a 5, but I've got to be honest and admit that I really enjoyed it and that it worked for me on multiple levels. If not for some slowness towards the end, I would have given it an even higher score, and several times during the movie, when I was unaccountably-enjoying the film, I imagined what I would do if it really help up through and through, and I had to give Constantine an 8.5 or 9 or something like that. Honestly, I wish that dilemma had come to pass.

Constantine worked out much like Ong Bak, which I saw the week before. In the case of Ong Bak it was a crappy movie with great fight scenes, and those elevated my score from about a 4 to a 6.5. Constantine was a better film than Ong Bak in every way, but while it wasn't great it had a mythology and visual effects that I absolutely loved, and those took it's deserved 5.5 or 6 up to an 8, in my book.

Plot discussion with uber spoilers.

Stop now. You were warned. The following are based on seeing the whole movie, so this is the summary, rather than presented in the order you learn them in from the film, which is really how you should take them in.

Heaven and Hell are planes apart from the mortal plane. Neither angels nor demons can cross over to our mortal plane, but half-breeds abound. Half breeds are apparently spawn of angels and demons, though how this happens if the full-breeds can never come to earth, and since Angels aren't really male or female and lack genitalia is open to debate.  Yet as Constantine discovers during the movie, demons are trying to cross over, which is in violation of an ancient wager between God and Satan. Worse yet, Satan's son Mamon is trying to cross over and take form on earth, and that he can do it by possessing a super powerful psychic and merging her with a drop of God's blood. Sounds impossible, until a trash scavenger in Mexico finds the Spear of Destiny in the foundation of a burned building. The spear was the actual cause of Jesus' death on the cross, and it still has his blood on it. The trash picker guy is immediately possessed and made immortal, as he sets out to cross the border and head for Los Angeles, where Constantine and the rest of the action is taking place.

At about that same time (apparently) some force drives a woman in a psych ward to run up to the roof and throw herself to her death. The woman turns out to be a powerful psychic, the identical twin sister of a female LA cop, who as we eventually find out shared her sister's power to see half-breeds in the flesh; she just denied it all along and eventually lost the power, while leaving her sister to twist in the wind and be considered crazy. As it turns out, the psychic sister was driven to suicide so she would go straight to hell and pull her twin into the plot. The twin eventually has Constantine nearly-drown her to reawaken her psychic power, but that was all part of the bad guys' plan, and they snatch her away once her powers have returned. She is needed to be the conduit through which Manon passes, with the aid of the Spear of Destiny with its ancient dried Jesus blood.

Skipping ahead and hitting just the highlights, while skipping all of the cool details:

¤ Constantine tracks her down, he and his sidekick save her with an exorcism, but just as they do it the sidekick is killed by some unseen force.

¤ Constantine summons up his powers and calls for the force, and when it bursts into sight we're all shocked to see Gabriel, the angel we thought was a good guy.

¤ As Gabriel explains, humanity is wasted on itself, with the best aspects only showing through during a crisis. For this reason Gabriel is helping Manon to cross over, since that will be a crisis that may destroy the earth entirely.

¤ Gabriel then blows Constantine back into another room where he crashes into a door and lies there, broken.

¤ All seems lost but Constantine is tricky, and cuts his wrists, committing suicide again, and dying just before Gabriel stabs the girl with the spear. Satan appears with Constantine, since as rumored, he was the only soul Old Scratch would come up to claim in person. Satan is awesome, by the way. He's played by Peter Stormare, and actor I didn't know, but one who nails it. He's dressed in a white suit, but is barefoot and his feet are dripping with tar. His face isn't outright demonic, just very menacing with some makeup applied to bring out the traceries of veins in his temples, and he's got just a hint of the straight lines of a neck tattoo showing above his pressed collar. It was one of the best presentations of Satan I've ever seen, in that he wasn't outright evil and snarling, but he wasn't overly urbane and perfect either, they way Satan is so often portrayed (as in Angel Heart, for instance). He was cultured, but you could tell that was a very thin veneer over the beast within.

¤ Satan talks a bit, gloating over his prize, but before he can take Constantine away Constantine explains what's about to happen in the other room. Satan doesn't want to believe it, but he can't risk his son getting into the mortal plane (It's not entirely clear why he would care, since wouldn't that send him billions of new souls? Maybe daddy just didn't want his son getting all the glory.) so he goes to check, sees what's happening, and stops it just in time, burning Gabriel's wings off in the process and throwing his son back down to hell.

¤ Constantine has earned a reward for this, and Satan offers him a few more months of life. Constantine says no, and instead asks for the girl's sister's soul to be freed from hell. Satan thinks it over for a second, looks to the side, and goes, "It's done." I liked that; not a lot of time wasted on ceremony.