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Dialogue is Keanu's true demon

By LESLIE GRAY STREETER
Palm Beach Post

Oh Keanu, what are we gonna do with you?

Many of my fellow critics — OK, more than many — firmly believe that our Mr. Reeves, star of the intriguing but dumb demon-fighter epic Constantine, couldn't act his way out of an oversized bag of fake-buttered popcorn. Behold his monotone, dude-irific line delivery, the lack of emotion on his surfer angel mug, the fact that he appears, in many cases, to be dazed, confused and high on NyQuil.

Warner Bros. Pictures 'Constantine' C Bottom Line: Wordy, dull and wasteful of the Keanu. Director: Francis Lawrence Starring: Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Max Baker, Djimon Hounsou, Tilda Swinton Run time: 121 minutes Release date: Feb. 18, 2005 Rating: R for violence and demonic images See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer   -- Trailers require Quicktime [an error occurred while processing this directive]

But I contend that there's more to being a good actor than a smooth way with words. Sometimes you need a fancy-talking, classically trained Kevin Kline type. And other times, you need a criminally pretty boy like Richard Gere in American Gigolo, who is able to look deeply thoughtful and slightly confused. But in a beautiful way.

That doesn't mean Keanu's not a good actor. He's just an actor who's better off when he's not speaking a whole lot. I mean, how swell was he as the New Age messiah-of-few-words in The Matrix, or as the beaming, eye-candy doctor in Something's Gotta Give? The exception was his foray into Shakespeare — my dreams are still haunted by him moodily slumping around Much Ado About Nothing like a grunge drummer looking for his missing pot stash.

But he's usually fine with a strong director and a good script that lets him explore his amazing physical gifts and leaves the fancy wordplay to others. Constantine, sadly, is not that movie.

Apparently taken from a DC/Vertigo Comics series called Hellblazer, Constantine is a great-looking but snortingly dull saga of a hard-smoking, hard-drinking, hard-hearted exorcist who hates his job. And who wouldn't?

John Constantine is blessed/cursed with a gift that makes him see demons, and therefore has been enlisted for extermination duty by God and his crew, including the smoothly snide angel Gabriel (that nutty Tilda Swinton). His career doesn't look to be a long one, either, as his vicious chain-smoking has given him terminal lung cancer and an attempt to kill himself has prompted God to issue a "Go Directly to Hell" hall pass.

Bummer.

Constantine is less than thrilled about helping a cop (Rachel Weisz), who is trying to get her devout Catholic twin sister a proper burial by proving she did not commit suicide in a mental ward. But he hopes this good deed might sway God on that whole eternal hellfire thing.

Much demon-busting ensues. All very cool to look at, but somehow maddeningly listless. I blame the NyQuil.

Constantine mouths plenty of Maltese Falcon-lite musings provided by clunky screenwriters Kevin Brodbin and Frank Cappello. Why didn't they just let him mull his dark fate silently and proceed to smack down some demons? No more zingers for Keanu! Keanu's not zingy!

Fortunately, the movie's stocked with a mass of ringers who are quite good with the self-conscious one-liners, including young and impressive Shia LaBeouf as Constantine's sidekick, Swinton as the wily Gabriel, Peter Stomare as Beelzebub himself, and the lovely and talented Djmon Hounsou as some sort of demonic club owner of the damned.

Speaking of pretty, Constantine's most impressive find is Bush lead singer Gavin Rossdale, otherwise known as the guy married to Gwen Stefani, who plays the vain, suavely cool demon Balthazar. Imagine Jude Law but with slightly preenier edges, and you've got it.

Still, Constantine is a straight-up stinker — Movie Buddy Steph and I pretty much snickered our way through it, including the parts that weren't supposed to be funny.