Tags for this video have been changed from 'constantine, keanu reeves, lucifer, gabriel' to 'constantine, keanu reeves, lucifer, gabriel, peter stormare' - edited by rasch187

He actually says "Looks like someone doesn't have your back anymore".

Best scene in that awful movie.

I was a huge fan of the Hellblazer comics, had like eighty issues in a run. I didn't think this was a very good Hellblazer movie, but I did think it was a decent movie in and of itself. It gets a bad rap. Wish they had just called it something else and not wasted the John Constantine character this way.

The design concept for hell in this movie is awesome. It's a mirror universe undergoing a perpetual nuclear blast.

The ideal John Constantine would have been 38 year-old James Spader doing a cockney accent. John's magic should be subtle and quiet, more like trickery, and he should never wield anything as a conventional weapon, especially not anything resembling a gun.

I loved the Hellblazer series, and thought this movie wasn't half bad; it certainly was true to presenting mystical concepts in a modern light.

Reeves' somber and cynical personality did not quite fit Constantine from the comics (in addition to being american), but he made it work to my satisfaction.

I thought this whole scene was freaking great. I always love the Lucifers. Same thing in The Prophecy where Viggo Mortensen plays him.

I liked Gabriel through the whole movie too.

>> ^gwiz665:
I thought this whole scene was freaking great. I always love the Lucifers. Same thing in The Prophecy where Viggo Mortensen plays him.
I liked Gabriel through the whole movie too.


you mean this prophecy?
http://www.videosift.com/video/viggo-mortensen-as-lucifer-the-prophecy-1995

Tags for this video have been changed from 'constantine, keanu reeves, lucifer, gabriel, peter stormare' to 'constantine, keanu reeves, lucifer, gabriel, peter stormare, Tilda Swinton' - edited by ponceleon

Actually, I disagree with Budzos... I enjoyed the movie a lot more than the comic. I found the comics very hokey and disjointed in comparison, whereas the movie really encapsulated what I would LOVE religion to be. To me Catholicism is empty just because it has claims to relics, spells, and traditions which are ineffective in our world but pretend to be powerful in the way they are presented in this movie.

Religion would kick ass if it was based on a reality like this... I'm not sure how else to say it, but religion (and Catholicism specifically) is like people playing a childish game in which they are trying to imagine a world like this movie portrays.

To get more specific, I liked the explanations and backgrounds of the characters much better in the movie than in the comics. The comic has John Constantine being an ex glam-rocker who is slightly psychic/mystic and who's "damnation" doesn't come from an attempted suicide as in the movie, but rather a botched exorcism which is just kinda stupid. The whole suicide thing is really well done in the reimagining in the movie and makes a lot more sense.

Papa midnight is another character which is vastly improved in the movie. In the book, he seems more like a reject from Live and Let Die, a blaxploitation stereotype, whereas in the movie they really brought home the idea of someone that lives between two allegiances.

As for the use of "guns" and other 007ny stuff, I really thought it worked a lot better than the way they present him in the books. Frankly I'd rather have Constantine wielding a holy shotgun with blessed bullets than looking for a tape of his music video in his trashy apartment.

I'll admit that I only got through three of the graphic novels before I stopped, but I just feel that the changes made to Constantine's development improve vastly over what I saw in the books. As for making him American, I hate Keanu in most of his performances and I thought he really brought it for this one. I was pleasantly surprised and this movie remains one of my all-time favs.

I liked the movie a lot. I never read any of the comics, if I had I'd like the movie anyways, because it's pretty good and it doesn't ruin the comics I've already read. Kinda like how I wouldn't stop watching Firefly if Serenity ended up being crap.

I really have a soft spot for movies like this. The whole "what if Catholicism was true" really gets me. I have a lot of respect for it as a series of fables, despite my utter contempt for people who think they are true.

And this one was really well done, as far as visuals. I can't weigh in on the whole comic vs movie debate, since I haven't seen the comics, but the simple fact is they are two different mediums, which demand two different types of storytelling. Is is often useless to compare them.

Sorry there were no car chases in it for you Ponceleon.

It's not useless to compare them. Pardon me but what an asinine comment. This is far enough from what Hellblazer really is that I don't think it deserves to be called a Constantine movie. There are choices made in the process of adaptation that affect the quality of the outcome.

What is the essential difference between cinematic and comic book storytelling that requires changing the main character from a wise-cracking englishman to a dour american? It certainly doesn't bring anything to the table, from what I can see, apart from allowing Keanu Reeves to play the part, which looking back didn't seem to help the movie, aside from securing a decent budget, which probably worked against it in the end. If any "comic book movie" did not need to be all that visually spectacular, this is the one. Hellblazer should be understated with occasional horrific moments, not big action set pieces like happen every 20 minutes in this fucking movie.

In the comics he chose to mess with magic and it cost him bigtime. That's the essence of his character. Even if he saves the day it will be in a rotten and nasty way because he uses black magic. Having him be chosen as some kind of secret weapon, caught up in a conspiracy against the devil, is typical hollywood horseshit.

Also, come to think of it, I think John would have a Liverpool accent as I think that he only ended up in London as a young man.

For me this was one of the better Keanu Reeves movies. I actually watched it several times on HD, mostly because as mentioned about it kinda made religion be relevant in its cinematic setting. I liked the Gabriel character, the light use of CG, the usage of relics and artifacts. Lucifer himself and so on.

I never read Hellblazer but I understood the perpetual studio need to Americanize everything because they believe Americans can't relate to anyone else but Americans.

Late night *promote.

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oh yeaaaah... this movie. i had almost forgotten. I went in hoping that Keanu would say "whoa"

He had the wind up: "People in insane asylums are seeing things?" and then he DIDN'T say whoa. He said "That's crazy"

That was my favourite part of this movie.

SPOILERS IN THIS POST (for the devil's advocate)

>> ^gwiz665:
I thought this whole scene was freaking great. I always love the Lucifers. Same thing in The Prophecy where Viggo Mortensen plays him.
I liked Gabriel through the whole movie too.


I absolutely *LOVE* the religion warring in the modern day type films, they really appeal to me. And like you, i have a massive crush on these lucifers. I think john abruzzi (lol) does a great job in this film as lucifer, there's something almost reptilian about his looks to kick off with, and the way he speaks reminds me of G-man from the half life series. It's just all great.

And aragorn was pretty good as well, i'll admit, but i think you missed on one of the greatest showing of the devil in modern times - pacino. Don't get me wrong, i think pacino has been a bit of a hasbeen for a long time, his heart just isn't in the job anymore and he's become a stereotype of himself. But in "The Devil's Advocate", he hits the nail RIGHT on the head. Before you realise he's the devil, he comes across excellently. You know there's something wrong with him but you're not quite sure what, because although he's a nice guy with the people you see him with, he has odd quirks and mannerisms that blow the cover of 'normal guy'. And finally when he shows that he's the devil, his attitude is just fantastic.

Oh, and as for this film - i loved it, i thought it was one of the better films of the time that didn't recieve a lot of attention (at least, over here). Never read the comics.

Invocations (love) cannot be called by dannym3141 because dannym3141 is not privileged - sorry.

Fuck yeah, he is so cool.

About Pacino's Lucifer, I think that because he is featured more prominently in the movie (Devil's Advocate) he loses some of his power. In this and the Prophecy he is basically all-powerful - in both movies we've built up that Gabriel is pretty powerful, and Lucifer just "brushes them off". Pacino's lucifer is more of a manipulator, plans within plans within plans, kind of type. I like his monologues though.

I think I like Darth Sidius for the same reason - he's much like Lucifer, powerful, manipulating.

>> ^enoch:
>> ^gwiz665:
I thought this whole scene was freaking great. I always love the Lucifers. Same thing in The Prophecy where Viggo Mortensen plays him.
I liked Gabriel through the whole movie too.

you mean this prophecy?
http://www.videosift.com/video/viggo-mortensen-as-lucifer-the-proph
ecy-1995

I'm actually really amazed at how polarizing this movie is... I've brought it up to a number of people in the past and find that unilaterally people either love it or hate it. The Comic thing is kind of irrelevant since most people haven't read it, but I still stand by my assessment that the movie's lore is a lot tighter than the comic's. I just find the comic poorly written, whereas this was like a very good episode of the X-files. No Proust mind you, but very well written for a bit of cinematic fun.

Oh and yeah, Tilda Swinton is the fracking bomb in this movie.

A lot of comments on how good the movie is here. I have never seen it, but from watching this clip I know I wont because it made one of the mistakes that I really hate. Gabriel is a masculine name, hence the feminine Gabriella. Even though I don't believe in any of this stuff I'd like it if people got the story right. Gabriel is male. Just as I wouldn't appreciate it if a movie mistakenly made Apollo female I just don't like it when movies/books make Gabriel a woman. It's unfortunate, because the movie sounds like it is pretty good otherwise.

>> ^Skeeve:
Gabriel is male.

It's a movie its not the Passion of the Christ.

If anything the character of Gabriel comes off as being entirely androgynous which is something I would think they would be being not of man, this works pretty well in the film given how alien Tilda Swinton looks in general.

>> ^gwiz665:
Fuck yeah, he is so cool.
About Pacino's Lucifer, I think that because he is featured more prominently in the movie (Devil's Advocate) he loses some of his power. In this and the Prophecy he is basically all-powerful - in both movies we've built up that Gabriel is pretty powerful, and Lucifer just "brushes them off". Pacino's lucifer is more of a manipulator, plans within plans within plans, kind of type. I like his monologues though.
I think I like Darth Sidius for the same reason - he's much like Lucifer, powerful, manipulating.


Yeah i agree there. I think the more you familiarise with a character the less of an enigma they are.

That's one of the selling points for pacino's role for me though. You're very familiar with him, he's talking to keanu like a father to a son. But he still repulses me a little at times, and i'm always slightly unsure of him. Like when they're at the party and he's getting noshed on under the table, and he looks at keanu and smiles, and i can't help but retract from something like that. And the monologues and rages that he goes into.. yeah love those bits.

But then again, like you said, the plots are a bit different - advocate has him as a manipulator, using our god given free will to trap us. But then, the bit after the suicide, when he wakes up and does a mental keanu "whoa". Pacino gets another go - vanity. And maybe he'll win that time. That's my favourite bit - you never win for good, you never beat him for good, you have to always beat him, every single time.

Hell now i'm just talking about advocate But i do love the way that keanu is presented with a choice - no guilt, no responsibility. God is all-powerful, and with the new child he would create with his sister, god could lose. And keanu could live forever in absolute bliss, literally forever, literally without responsibility or guilt, literally with the most intense bliss he could ever imagine. And he chooses not to take it - why? Because it's just wrong.

>> ^Farhad2000:
>> ^Skeeve:
Gabriel is male.

It's a movie its not the Passion of the Christ.
If anything the character of Gabriel comes off as being entirely androgynous which is something I would think they would be being not of man, this works pretty well in the film given how alien Tilda Swinton looks in general.


Faheed nails it... angels aren't human and Tilda just encapsulates the completely alien nature an angel would have in my opinion.

Ponce, it's not a love-it-or-hate-it movie. In the comic book nerd discussions I've had with people who actually read the Alan Moore or Garth Ennis stuff (important, if you've read other shit you probably read some bad comics), most people look at it this way: It's a fine movie, a good movie, but a bad Hellblazer adaptation. And it is a bad Hellblazer adaptation. You say you're not crazy about the comic to begin with. So the fact that you prefer the movie to the comics (which you keep saying you're not all that familiar with) doesn't make it a good adaptation.

See, I could make Commando and call it an adaptation of All My Children. I'm sure many people would prefer my movie to the source material, but that would not make it a good adaptation.

>> ^budzos:
See, I could make Commando and call it an adaptation of All My Children. I'm sure many people would prefer my movie to the source material, but that would not make it a good adaptation.


Actually, I kinda of want to see that movie... All my Children with lots of explosions and one-liners... I'm there!

>> ^Skeeve:
A lot of comments on how good the movie is here. I have never seen it, but from watching this clip I know I wont because it made one of the mistakes that I really hate. Gabriel is a masculine name, hence the feminine Gabriella. Even though I don't believe in any of this stuff I'd like it if people got the story right. Gabriel is male. Just as I wouldn't appreciate it if a movie mistakenly made Apollo female I just don't like it when movies/books make Gabriel a woman. It's unfortunate, because the movie sounds like it is pretty good otherwise.


get it right?
ok..here is "right".according to the 25 apocryphal books based on angel mythology:
1.angels are androgynous,which this film depicts quite well in tilda swinton.
2.gabriel in particular sided with lucifer along with 1/3 of heavenly hosts and lost their bid to "sway" god.according to myth gabriel was destroyed by god,resurrected and then absolved of all prior sin.this is why gabriel is known as the angel of resurrection,and his punishment/duty is to stand watch over the four watchtowers- north(might be south,too lazy to check)and will utter no sound until the end-times(book of john,gabriel blows his horn).
3.gabriel is told to be the size of a sun and for any mortal to gaze upon his true form would be instant and painful death.thats why the arch-angels use lesser angels to do their bidding concerning humanity.
4.this movie is based on a graphic novel.

if religions cant even keep their theology straight,how can you expect a writer or film-maker?
this is just material i pulled off the top of my head,there are massive VOLUMES of material to sort through,and much of it contradicts each other.

but maybe your deal is just with gender naming,in that case i cant help ya buddy.

All the angels have male names, because men wrote the bible. Not really more to it.

In the movie they're androgynous, which Tilda Swinton captures great - is it gay to say that she's hot in this movie?

>> ^gwiz665:
All the angels have male names, because men wrote the bible. Not really more to it.
In the movie they're androgynous, which Tilda Swinton captures great - is it gay to say that she's hot in this movie?


Yes! But damn it she's really hot in that suit in the library.

*comics

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>> ^gwiz665:
All the angels have male names, because men wrote the bible. Not really more to it.
In the movie they're androgynous, which Tilda Swinton captures great - is it gay to say that she's hot in this movie?


Don't be afraid gwiz, i'm gay for tilda

Ok, good points about the non-humanness of angels. I can accept that Gabriel was very androgynous in that scene/movie. But what about Lucifer then? He is most definitely a masculine character. Kinda seems like they're attempting at having both interpretations instead of one or the other.

^enoch:

this is why gabriel is known as the angel of resurrection,and his punishment/duty is to stand watch over the four watchtowers- north(might be south,too lazy to check)and will utter no sound until the end-times(book of john,gabriel blows his horn).

Sorry to single you out enoch, but the idea that Gabriel blows the trumpet in the end times is not found anywhere in scripture, the earliest source for this is from an Armenian manuscript from 1455, and it reached the English language in Milton's Paradise Lost. As for not uttering a sound until the end times, the Bible specifically names Gabriel and the angel who announces the births of John the Baptist and Jesus (Luke 1:5-20 and Luke 1:26-38 respectively) hence his title as the Archangel of Annunciation.

Yes there are many different stories about angels, many of which contradict each other, but the standard beliefs as written in the Bible and accepted by the major churches stand on their own.

I know I am picking at a movie you guys enjoy immensely, I'm not trying to attack your taste/choice, I just think it's a little odd the way they chose to portray it. Either way, I don't really know anything about the movie or its universe so I'll shut up about it now .

Fantastic movie, fantastic scene. This scene blew my mind in the theater's (having no knowledge of the comic at all) - and I pondered the awesomeness of Lucifer effectively granting him life just in case he fucked up again.

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You should pick up some of the later stuff. Some of those graphic novels are awesome. I like "the gift", "all his engines", "pandemonium", and "hard time".

>> ^ponceleon:
Actually, I disagree with Budzos... I enjoyed the movie a lot more than the comic. I found the comics very hokey and disjointed in comparison, whereas the movie really encapsulated what I would LOVE religion to be. To me Catholicism is empty just because it has claims to relics, spells, and traditions which are ineffective in our world but pretend to be powerful in the way they are presented in this movie.
Religion would kick ass if it was based on a reality like this... I'm not sure how else to say it, but religion (and Catholicism specifically) is like people playing a childish game in which they are trying to imagine a world like this movie portrays.
To get more specific, I liked the explanations and backgrounds of the characters much better in the movie than in the comics. The comic has John Constantine being an ex glam-rocker who is slightly psychic/mystic and who's "damnation" doesn't come from an attempted suicide as in the movie, but rather a botched exorcism which is just kinda stupid. The whole suicide thing is really well done in the reimagining in the movie and makes a lot more sense.
Papa midnight is another character which is vastly improved in the movie. In the book, he seems more like a reject from Live and Let Die, a blaxploitation stereotype, whereas in the movie they really brought home the idea of someone that lives between two allegiances.
As for the use of "guns" and other 007ny stuff, I really thought it worked a lot better than the way they present him in the books. Frankly I'd rather have Constantine wielding a holy shotgun with blessed bullets than looking for a tape of his music video in his trashy apartment.
I'll admit that I only got through three of the graphic novels before I stopped, but I just feel that the changes made to Constantine's development improve vastly over what I saw in the books. As for making him American, I hate Keanu in most of his performances and I thought he really brought it for this one. I was pleasantly surprised and this movie remains one of my all-time favs.

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