Constantine

Here we have another Catholicism-cloaked supernatural thriller that falls back on the same tiresome genre staples: possessed young women and tied-to-bed exorcisms, "lost" books of the Bible that allow the screenwriter to invent plot-convenient mythology, and a troubled hero trying to stop some kind of demonic crossover into our plane of existence. In Constantine, that hero is Keanu Reeves, monotone-ing his way through his role as a chain-smoking über-exorcist who plays second fiddle to expensive special effects (he can see monsters that normal mortals can't) while dispatching devil-spawn spirits back from whence they came (with a golden, cross-shaped shotgun/flamethrower designed by an overzealous props department). When Satan's son (mentioned in a forgotten part of Corinthians, natch) tries to take over our world, Constantine teams up with a foxy police detective (Rachel Weisz) who has untapped powers and whose demon-seeing twin sister might have committed suicide rather than become an unwilling conduit between Hell and Earth. Constantine is never boring, but it's memorable only inasmuch as it boasts a particularly ferocious vision of Hell. Not a necessary purchase. [Note: Available in both single-disc widescreen or full screen versions, or in a double-disc widescreen deluxe edition, DVD extras on the latter include audio commentary (by director Francis Lawrence, producer Akiva Goldsman, and screenwriters Kevin Brodbin and Frank Cappello), a set of four design featurettes (31 min.), “The Production From Hell” featurettes (19 min. total), 14 deleted scenes including an alternate ending with optional director commentary (18 min.), a 16-minute “Conjuring Constantine” making-of featurette, the 14-minute segment “Foresight: The Power of Previsualization” computer-generated scene/final product comparison (14 min.), “Constantine Cosmology” about the story (6 min.), the music video “Passive” by A Perfect Circle (5 min.), trailers, and DVD-ROM content. Bottom line: a whopping extras package for a disappointing thriller.] (R. Blackwelder)