Dr. DVD

Me am Bizarro.

maxinquaye

but in FRIDA Alfred Molina, a british white guy, played Diego Rivera, and played him well. like in *any* big film, the realities of the choices out there dictate who will be cast. that's just reality.

basically what you're saying is that all changes were purely cosmetic...sorry, but you havent convinced me that any of the differences would have really mattered. like i said, the realities of the choices available dictate that NO ONE cast in this role will be perfect- the *real* Constantine doesn't exist! im not completely disagreeing with you, i just dont see (and you havent told me) any real specific reason why if the actor cast was blonde and british the film would be *any* different?

in the film he seems to be very similar as to what you describe. he's an exorcist with magic powers and knowledge. in order to spice up the movie, once they got into it, they gave him some relics to use, including that holy gun. it was a relatively minor thing, and he only used it against the "lesser" demons anyway.

part of your problem here is you keep giving me outrageous examples of changes that would *completely* change the nature of each respective story. but in this case, you havent given me any compelling reason that the changes made to Constantine would really effect the story in any way. or make it better. if you take Superman's ability to fly away, there is no story. if you made everyone in HOSAF white, there is no story. if you make Constatine of dark complexion and American...i dont see how it effects the story in any way.

im really sorry, but it sounds like you're just nit-picking. look, i represent the 95% of the audience who is going to see this- someone who is not familiar with the books. only im 3 steps closer to you: i have a brain, i know what im talking about in regards to movies, and i like comic books. but you still havent convinced me that these changes warrant this backlash. im not having this little argument because i even disagree with what you're saying as much as im really trying to figure out why this movie is "crap" in people's eyes because of minor cosmetic changes. i understand the intial frustration, but doesnt there come a point where you just get over it and view the movie for what it is? its fine if you dont like the film, i just dont get the knee-jerk "it's crap!" attitudes because of THIS reason.

as for the smoking bit, i thought that it was handled *extremely* well, and absolutely worked *in the context of the film*. the fact is, the film implied more than stated he had quit, so who's to say the moment he gets off that roof he doesnt light up? as a sort of poetic little twist, it worked- for the first time this character wasn't completely apathetic to everything around him. it stayed true to the character in the film, and what he had just gone through.

Dr. DVD

Well, FWIW, Molina is actually raised English and is mixed with Italian blood.

Jackskeleton

Only problem is that they took a story arc of him getting and removing cancer from the book, but instead of showing it like the book, they do a "HEY KIDS, SMOKING IS BAD MMMKAY"


Differernce is he plays the character that is given to him. Keanu here is just doing a Neo when the character is something completely different. Are you still not getting what I'm saying here? Johns character is NOTHING like what keanu plays it. Not just difference in visual look, but also presentation. They took Alfred Molina and made him LOOK and sound and act like Diego Rivera. This movie doesn't make Keanu look, act, or even come close to john other than a couple of drinks and a smoke. You do not know the back story to the whole smoking angle so I really don't see how the hell you can even come to a conclusion that they handled that well?


As for nitpicking. I already gave the superman example. It's not nit picking. It's observation. and No, You represent yourself. This movie is being targeted to BOTH audiances. the fans of the comic and those who are being introduced to it. You have no knowledge of the comic and well... frankly that means shit to me since you want me to prove something to you when I'm telling you at face value that there's a difference and you aren't believing unless I provide proof. They even change his back story around completely. If you don't believe me or take my word for it, fine. Don't start bitching to me that I'm not providing enough proof to sway you since I really don't care if you are swayed or that I'm nit picking. Be a informed person and do the research yourself.

You thought it was good. Catch up there thought it was boring and fell asleep.

Lets see the tally:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/constantine/

48%. So it's pretty clear that it's split down the road. Some will like it, some will hate it. I don't think that it's fair to say that everyone who doesn't read the comics will like it. Nor would it be fair to say everyone who reads the comic will hate it.

maxinquaye

molina's performance was an interpretation of the rivera persona, and im not sure either of us can categorically say how accurate it was...

isnt keanu's interpretation of the Constantine character (who doesnt exist, like Diego Rivera, by the way) just as valid as yours? if he's grossly misrepresenting the character, then tell me how. ive literally been asking you how it is so different, and you havent told me anything other than 1) blond, 2) british, 3) a new weapon. those are cosmetic traits; they arent character traits. i also seem to understand that he isnt quite as agressively "badass" in the film, but is that it?

they handled the smoking thing well in the film. maybe the comic handles it differently. nobody has given a single reason why, in the overall arc of the Constantine character, he cant stop smoking, if even for one movie/book/episode/whatever. if he stopped being selfish (temporarily), i think he can stop smoking (temporarily).


your superman example was outrageous and irrelevant, and i already told you why.

but surely not equally. so 50% of the people who go to see this film will have previous knowledge of the comic? i honestly doubt that. but that wasnt even my point. im representational of someone who doest know the comic- that's where my questions are coming from.


i believe you. im asking you how? why does the movie make you so angry?


how? how does it make it a worse film?

if you want to argue about this, then argue it. if you just want to get emotional and tell me to piss off, then fine. but you cant have it both ways. i never said you were wrong about anything. im not bitching at you about anything. im just asking you what the score is- im trying to figure this out. if you dont care to communicate that to me...then im not really sure why you're here. and im not really sure why everyone else who has been bitching about the character refuses to really talk about why it makes them so upset. i obviously dont understand it. but if you dont want to clue me in, i dont really understand the point in you (not necessarily you specifically, Jack) bitching about it in the first place.

the fact is you (Jack) initally talked about how it would be great if these movies would turn people on to the comics...yet you dont want to talk about the comics, and explain to me how the choices in the film were inferior. you take this elitist attitude, where i "mean shit" to you (your words), as if you have no patience for someone who is actually trying to take an intelligent and critical interest in the book/film comparison. so where exactly do you stand then? i dont get it.


good for him. sleep is important.

the half that hated it didnt explicitly hate it because of the Constantine character differences.

i never once said everyone has to like this movie. im just trying to understand why so many (on this board, most notably) have a knee-jerk dislike of it before even giving it a chance, and why the differences made are so significantly important.

Jackskeleton

yes, it makes him into an emo little punk ass bitch who doesn't know the difference between crossing the street to going down the road. Origin shows that he pulled a curse on his dad which ended him going into the mental wards and getting the shit fucked up out of him. Again, I'm not doing your homework for you. Go out and find the differences yourself.

You liked it, manys didn't. may will think it's cool. but to say that it works for the 95% of the audiance that doesn't read the comics is really just stupid and has no facts to base that off of.

The basics is that they took a character and changed him completely. tossed him into a new enviorment and made him all gun tolting out. The Holy Shotgun was just bad.

maxinquaye

thanks for really trying to turn on an interested cat to the original comics. you really have a high level of love for those books, since you're so eager to share and promote them- all your talk about people being turned on the to source material really rings true here.

i could go on about how the film did establish he had a messed up youth, and how he was send to the mental wards and made worse (by, as he said, his parents). i could then talk about how every single adaptation of a novel has left certain things out, for various necessary reasons, and the exclusion of his father might be no exception, especially since the details of his youth were already outlined with his parents to blame. but since we're heading down the "emo little punk ass bitch" road of critical analysis, i guess ill keep my mouth shut.

when i get to the comics, probably at this point either from a friend or the library, and i have any new thoughts, or even if i change my mind, ill be sure to keep them to myself, since that's obviously what you want here...


who said that? i never said that. please dont make things up. please, please, please. to say that really *would* be stupid, so i'm definitely glad i didnt.

i said that 95% of the audience (like myself) probably isnt familiar with the comics. and i also said the movie worked for me, specifically on a visual level. two completely independent statements. (note: now, clearly, to nit-pick, that 95% number might be way off, since i actually did make it up completely. but i would bet it's far closer to 95% than to 50%.)

Jackskeleton

I'm just tired of going back and forth with you. If you can't take my hint that the books are different than the movie and make the steps for yourself than that is your problem. I don't want to baby step you the whole way through. Your interest is peaked. now go out and doing the job yourself in educating yourself on the material.

maxinquaye

you're very clear in saying that the two things are different, just not very good at expressing how. i just figured as an expert and a lover of the material you'd be better at articulating your thoughts in a serious way. but that's cool.

you know, you're in LA, i'm in LA- if it ever stops raining, maybe we should just box

Dr. DVD

Hell no! Barbed wire match all the way man!!!

This is weird. For the longest time Jack seemed like some guy hellbent on defending the studio version of movies and comics, but in the recent months, he is becoming a great champion for the cause of good adaptations. He is really a guy to respect IMO.

maxinquaye

as your other thread can attest to, what constitutes a "good adaptation" is a pretty loaded question.

Jackskeleton

Hey, I like what I like. and as much as I'm a man that will defend a studio for the sake of profit and it being a business. I see this sort of action a move against the ability to fully market it. You want to appeal to the non readers, yes. But I don't think leaving him with a british accent would do that. If anything that will make him unique in characteristics. then moving away the already built in audiance doesn't make sense either. You have to start from scratch in building an audiance when you already had one. It's not a good trade off.

As I already said. If you did it more along the lines of the comics like the marvel comic films handle it then you can get them as readers of the monthly titles a whole lot easier.

Just think if Catwomen was more along the lines of the books. You would have gained the built in audiance from the comic, the already familiar with the character crowd and all the new folks coming in. You cross promote it the film in the comics and you got yourself a money maker there.

You change it completely and you have two different audiances that may not cross over to your other items. That has been WB's weakness. The later batman movies didn't work because during the time, Batman comics were pretty dark when the movies where going into a completely different direction that looked more like the 60's tv show. WB has the built in crowd that reads DC books. they have all the rights in the pocket under their parent banner and they decide to take steps into the unknown directions with these characters? Are they insane! The characters were successful in the comics for a reason. Don't fix what isn't broken.

And the boxing is on boy! pick the street cornor cause it's go time!

Dr. DVD

I agree with what Jack seems to be saying.

The character of Constantine has a cult following at best, and when you are making a movie based on something with limited appeal, you might as well make it as true to the source as possible. Will this yield through the roof profits? Maybe not initially, but let's wait before we pass judgment.
True, there is no huge opening weekend number, but you get a small group/niche crowd that is happy. What does this happy crowd do? They buy more comics and TPBs and will most likely be guaranteed DVD sales, which in itself can be a gold mine these days. In short, as I have said before, you might make only a small crowd happy, but with time that small crowd will spend enough money on your movie and its tie in items to yield a nice profit. But hey, that's not all. There's a chance that this crowd loving the movie will tell friends of similar tastes that they would like the movie as well, and they rent/buy the movie. IF they like it as well, then by the time the sequel rolls around ,you could actually have doubled your audience.

Interesting that the studios owning Marvel characters, whose ownership of the character ends with the movie (at least that's what I think) products, tend to make the more faithful adaptations even though they have less to gain from doing so.

Josh-da-man

While I can understand having to change a few things... when we're talking comic books, most of these characters have histories that go back decades and there's no way to fully capture that in a film. This is true for Hellblazer, The Fantastic Four, or X-Men. The best you can hope to do is condense the characters and story down into a two-hour, self-contained chunk.

One problem is that, when they start changing things about the character, things like making him American instead of British, and altering the tone -- making the movie action-oriented with tons of special effects -- that you run the risk of taking the things away from the source material that made it successful in the first place.

One thing about Hellblazer (the source material for Constantine) is that they could've easily made the movie "in continuity" with the comic book, as much of John Constantine's past is murky and his motives and abilities aren't always clear, even after twenty years of publication, and still have been accessible for an audience unfamiliar with the character.

Jackskeleton

I agree completely Josh. I think that the Marvel Properities have actually done a better job at keeping what made the titles good tapped into the film. Spidey had that peter parker aspect there in full blast. X-men had altered character origins but was still very close to the source when it came to characteristics and how they interact which did go a long way. While they altered the outfits to make it translate well to big screen it still kept what made it good to begin with.

This makes it easier for the casual or new fan to jump from movie to monthly title. Constantine could have worked very well if they tossed in or made it directly ripped from the pages of Hellblazer to bridge the gap and make new fans along the way.

Geofferson

A mixed bag of reviews over at MetaCritic. Ebert brings up a good point though, "Strange, that movies about Satan always require Catholics. You never see your Presbyterians or Episcopalians hurling down demons."

Either way, I plan on seeing this today.

fumanstan

I'm hoping to catch this sometime on the weekend. Changes from the comics or not, i predict a pretty big opening.

Jackskeleton

Considering the other crap out this week and the amount of push this film has been given, I would say that you will be correct to guess that fumanstan. top of the box office list today for sure.

Dr. DVD

Then most likely a 60% drop next week.

Josh-da-man

Catholocism is most likely used in horror movies like this because it's the oldest system of Christian worship, and it's more ritualized and ceremonial than traditions like, say, the Baptists and Methodists.

Giantrobo

I just got back from seeing this flick....I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. I really liked the style and the characters in this movie. I though Tilda Swinton added a "something" to the film that I can't explain and casting her in that role was really cool IMHO. Also, although I wasn't expecting much from Reeves, he wasn't nearly as bad as I thought he would be. I say that based on me going in NOT expecting much out of this flick based on reviews here on dvdtalk and mentally approaching the movie as if Constantine was a new character and not a well established one. I used to read Hellblazer back in the 90's. With that said I still would've preferred an actor closer to the comic book version of John.


Did anyone stay after the credits? It's a very cool scene

Giantrobo

I agee. Plus, with all due respect to Catholics here, the RIGID rules and traditions make it easy for things like "working your way to Heaven with good deeds" and "Suicide means automatic damnation" to be used in the plot.

Derrich

I liked it .

D

Jetjaguar

i saw it earlier today and i thought it was a good movie .. some parts were kinda cheesey .. but overall a good movie

Linn1

and agree with Jackskeleton completely. The way they changed it isn't just the English issue, it's also plot and basic character design. The main difference is that John Constantine, and stories featuring him, are NEVER straight forward. Part of the charm of the Hellblazier comic is that you often have NO CLUE what's happening until the end or near the end. Hell, he may not even be a good guy in the story. It's all about elaborate netherworldly mechanations, where this guy (who is a mage, make no mistake) does his best to preserve himself, and MAYBE those around him. But it's all really about John first as sort of a bastard anti-hero. He's like an older Holden Caulfield with the ability to summon satan. The stories are often horror tales with a healthy dose of old school Clive Barker and a dash of M.R. James in modern dress. The better ones have the feel of hardboiled crime mixed with British horror.

John Constantine of the comic would never use the weapons in the film, because he wouldn't need to. He's smart. He doesn't go into a fight with holy guns ablaze, he hides in an alley waiting for the right moment to strike or tricks someone else into doing it for him. He's all about elaborate schemes where he only reveils his hand if he knows the outcome ie if he's winning. The times he's outwardly attacked anything,very few, are really where he gets into trouble. The perfect Americanized Constantine film would have been a combo of two sources, both with British hands in them, the modern brit horror of early Barker and the look and seedy characters of Angel Heart. What we got is an American attempted blockbuster, something as far removed from the character as fire is to snow.