Constantine

The Keanu Reeves in Constantine is not much different from the Keanu Reeves in the Matrix trilogy, several critics observe, including A.O. Scott in the New York Times, but many, Scott included, suggest that this film is unlikely to enjoy the success of Matrix, despite its supernatural pretensions. The movie tries for a stylized, expressionistic pop grandeur -- the kind of eerie, dreamy visual environment that made the first Matrix so intriguing -- but its look is sticky, murky and secondhand, Scott writes. Asks Gene Seymour in Newsday, Why is it that whenever a studio movie engages the unseen, malevolent forces crawling beneath 'reality's' surface, Keanu Reeves is always the guy charged with beating them down? Leah McLaren in the Toronto Globe & Mail imagines the studio execs' meeting at which the decision was made to produce the movie: A few guys in Prada suits sit around an L.A. boardroom table going, 'The Matrix meets The Exorcist, huh .....? With Keanu? I like it. No wait -- I love it. Geoff Pevere in the Toronto Star has got it figured out. The fact is, there is no person in movie history who has devoted more time to defending civilization from evil and obliteration than Keanu Reeves, or who has spent more time shifting between spiritual, perceptual and historical planes to do the job right proper. But this time, many critics suggest, the job is just too big for him. Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal describes the movie as a preternaturally joyless tale of the supernatural and goes on to nominate it for the year's most depressing film. And Hank Stuever in the Washington Post suggests that the movie ought to be called CSI: Revelation. The film does have a few defenders, including Glenn Whipp in the Los Angeles Daily News, who call it an intelligent, wildly entertaining nerve-jangler. And Michael Booth in the Denver Post comments, Constantine takes itself just seriously enough to put on a good show.