The Vertigo version is still the same character. Hellblazer was just one of the DC titles that was moved to DC's more "edgy" Vertigo imprint back in the early 90's. Same character, same background, the only difference is that the comic became more "mature" and ended up containing more swearing, violence, etc. than it had at the beginning of the title's run.

It's nice to see that the film contains some elements from Garth Ennis' "Dangerous Habits" storyline (still one of my favourite Constantine stories), but after seeing the previews, I just don't see this as a real Constantine film. Sorry, but Keanu is all wrong, IMO.

The international trailer is pretty cool. Has a haunting chic-techno-horror vibe. Kind of reminds me of the trailer to Fight Club.

Please spoil these for me.

Sort of.

Popular legend has it that Steve Bissette (the artist on the book at the time) drew Sting into the background of a few panels of the comic as a running joke.

Alan Moore was planning on introducing a mystic into the book as a spiritual guide for the Swamp Thing. Steve Bissette was keen on doing a character that looked like Sting, and Moore liked the idea of having the mystic character be a younger, contemporary person, and John Constantine was born.

DC Legal, however, made them stop drawing the character to look like Sting, even though, apparently, the real Sting knew about the character and didn't have a problem with them using his likeness.

I will see it and have skimmed some of the comics. However, I will not read any of them until I see the movie without a pre-ordained notion of what it should look like.

Alan Moore comics that go to movies do not have a very good track record.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was a travesty, and while From Hell looked nice, it definitely was a different approach altogether and I think a financial disaster. Constantine looks to follow the trend.

Cool stuff. If (for god knows what reason) I ever got famous and got stuck in a cool comic book, the most I would ask is that they print my fan letter.

If it sucked, though, ...lawyer city! It's hard to type when your hands are numb and frozen. Goddamn my broken fireplace, PG&E and their exhorbitant rates!

PS: Just gotta mention. I finally found my copy of issue #200. Well, it rocked. Now I can continue reading (as soon as I find a store that has a copy of 201. 202 & 203 remain stagnant. ...waiting.)

That was the exact reaction that I had. The more I watched of it, the less I wanted to see the movie.

I hope the movie isn't as disappointing as that disc led me to believe.

You mean this movie isn't "The Matrix Part 4"? Because that is what I thought after watching the previews.

I'm looking forward to it.

For those who are interested, you can watch my on-camera interview with Keanu, co-star Djimon Hounsou and director Francis Lawrence here:
http://www.ugo.com/channels/comics/e...rticleID=12671

Thanks BJacks! Good stuff. I'm a big fan of Djimon Hounsou so I'm glad he's in the movie. Hopefully his role kicks ass.

Do not waste your money on this movie. This was one movie that I was really looking forward to, and in the end I was extremely happy that I did not have to pay to see it. The problem with the movie is that it isn't terrible, but it isn't good either, it is just plain and simply the most mediocre movie I have ever seen. The performances (for the most part) and FX are good, but the story is extremely muddled. The movie also has no idea what its tone is. At one moment it tries to be a horror film and the very next it is trying to be a comedy, the only thing problem is that it is never actually scary and very few of the jokes actually work.

As for the story being muddled, here is what I mean. First characters come and go without any developement, but we are supposed to care about them. Also, the one character that seems to be there to kind of explain things to the audience vanishes halfway through the movie and then reappears towards the end with no explanation as to why that person disappeared for so long. Another problem is that I think the movie is expecting everyone that sees it to be familiar with the comics (and I am not, so I'm not even sure if that would help the movie). Characters crytpically talk to each other about events, but nothing EVER gets even slightly explained to the audience (for instance when Constantine meets Papa Midnight they have a conversation about their past together without ever getting into anything specific, but we are supposed to understand Papa Midnight's motivations from this conversation).

The other main problem with the movie, and for this I blame producer Akiva "I make nothing but crap" Goldsman, is that the movie is unsure if it wants to be a thinking person's movie or a stupid action movie. It ends up being neither, which is a shame, because this would have been a great movies if it went the first route.

Hmmm. Your comments make me think that once there might have been an alright screeenplay that fell victim to the studio adage of "this script is perfect! Who can we get to rewrite it?".

I'll watch the film since my friend wants to, but I'm not looking forward to it too much. I mean, if the super-realistic and very convincing effects can't win me over, then the only-excellent stories about production I've heard will have to...

I have also heard that the film's ending is lame.

The ending is great, it just takes forever to get there.

Yet another Alan Moore creation which while successful as a comic, utterly fails as a movie.

Here's an interesting interview excerpt w/ Moore in which he explains his predicament:

I'm assuming you haven't seen the film of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"?

AM: No, no, no, no. In fact, I'm getting worse, instead of better, with regard to the films. That was a spectacular tantrum, even by my standards, I surprised myself.

I've decided I don't want anything more to do with films at all. After all the stuff with "The League," there'd been some minor law suit with somebody claiming that I had gotten the idea from an American Hollywood screen writer and you can imagine how I felt about that. So, I felt, if I'm going to react I might as well over-react. So, I said, right, that's it, no more Hollywood films. And if they do make films of my work, then I want my name taken off them and I want all the money given to the artists of those books. I thought, God, that sounds principled and almost heroic! Then I got a phone call from Karen Berger the next Monday, she's an editor at DC Comics, and she said, "Yeah, we're going to be sending you a huge amount of money before the end of the year because they're making this film of your Constantie character with Keanu Reeves." I said, "Right, OK. Well, take my name off of it and distribute my money amongst the other artists. I felt, well, that was difficult, but I did it and I feel pretty good about meself. Then I saw David Gibbons who I had done "Watchmen" with and he was saying, "Oh Alan, guess what, they're making the 'Watchmen' film." And I said, with tears streaming down my face, "Take my name off of it David. (sniffles) You can have all the money." Then I got a check for the "V for Vendetta" film... It was just, this was all within three days!

You must have felt like God was punishing you.

AM: Or at least he's got kind of a sense of humor. I don't know what I was thinking, but I've said it, so now I've got to kind of stick with it. But, on the other hand, just for the look on a Hollywood producer's faces, "If he doesn't want the money, what does he want?" Their bewilderment is priceless.

You can't put a price on that.

AM: No you can't, not that sort of entertainment.

Scott's right, the ending is great, but the movie just drags thanks to its blandness. Sorry if my original post seemed a little jumbled, I was trying to voice my opinion without any spoilers creeping in which made it a little hard to get out.

Thanks for the summary - debating whether or not to see this one.

A good comic turned into a bland movie by re-writes; never heard of such a thing!

on Dark Horizons' reader reviews. most people seem to really like this movie

It looks like the film is at least partially based on Garth Ennis' "Dangerous Habits" story, which still stands as one of my favourite Constantine storylines, so I have to admit that I'm curious about seeing this. I'm not going in with huge expectations though, so maybe that will help.

I still can't wait. It still looks entertaining.

NO... NO... NO.... NO. NO

Anyone who has read the book will hate this film. I hated the movie on the grounds that I've read Hellblazer and this is no Constantine from the book that I know of. If you read the comic and saw and fell in love with the character in the comic you will see none of him in this film. From changing the characters look completely to making him american and lose any true Brit that he has in him. The comic fans will hate this film. It does have a lot of elements of Dangerious habits. But it's not done very well.

At the very least the special effects were decent and if you want to see the female lead in a lot of wet t-shirts, this is a film for you. Other than that.. this is pure crap. I saw this film a couple of months back and I really disliked it. It wasn't very good at all.

That's all I need to know.

I use to read Hellblazer comics. I thought the character was British. I'm not sure why the change. I'll see how it does on rottentomatoes before I spend money on it.

The trailer looks like it has potential, but the fact that it's being dumped in February points to problems. Plus for a Keanu Reeves action movie it hasn't been getting much buzz.