TV: "Constantine" Episode 1 Review

- by Ninja Ross, 29 October 2014

It seems like it has been forever since DC announced that Constantine would be coming to our small screens via NBC. And now, it’s finally here! But have they given us a true representation of John Constantine without compromising the dark and often political themes found in the Hellblazer comic books? No. Not really, no. I’m getting ahead of myself.

Matt Ryan

Matt Ryan stars as the titular hero John Constantine. We’re introduced to him in Ravenscar, a fictional mental asylum in Northern England. Constantine checked himself into the asylum voluntarily after a mishap in Newcastle that left a young girl named Astra ripped to pieces by the demon Nergal.

Checked himself into the asylum voluntarily. It’s not outright said, but the idea is he wants the staff there to convince him that demons don’t exist. Or some such silliness, I kind of drifted off for a minute so I didn’t quite catch it. I was pulled back in when Constantine came across a demon inhabiting one of his fellow patients.

After leaving a message, telling John to head to America and protect a dead friend’s daughter, he decides to ditch the hospital clothes for the iconic trench coat and suit.

Visually, Matt Ryan makes a fantastic Constantine. He looks like him, moves like you’d imagine and he has a pretty great screen presence. The acting isn’t terrible, either - he plays cocky pretty well.

The accent, however, is a little bit terrible. Matt Ryan is a Welsh actor, with a fairly thick Welsh accent that he doesn’t even seem to be trying to change. Constantine is originally from Liverpool but spends most of his time in London. Neither of these places is that close to Swansea, Wales. Accent aside, though, he does a fine job.

While we’re on the subject of speech and how things are pronounced:

Not a Constanteen. Not Welsh.

Back to the plot (or whatever it is), John spends most of the episode trying to teach Liv Aberdeen (played by Lucy Griffiths) how to do magic and what have you. Aberdeen can see things that even John can’t see. Ghosts and stuff (kind of like the 2005 Keanu Reeves movie they said they wanted to avoid). John is there to help her get to grips with this stuff.

THIS IS WHERE I SPOIL THE END OF THE EPISODE: It’s all pointless, since she was hastily written out of the show for whatever reason. At the end, with Constantine sitting at a bar, Chas (more on him in a bit) arrives and says she’s gone to California to live with her cousin. But she says to keep fighting! Yeah.

John with Aberdeen, before she went to California.

So, the plot isn’t great. Also in the plot: John is being watched over by an angel who wants him to help fight evil in exchange for saving his soul. Missing the point a bit there, since Constantine doesn’t really fight evil. Nor does he like to help angels in any way, regardless of the destination of his soul.

The plot is so bad, not even Neil Marshall’s directing helped. Heck his work here kind of felt lazy and generic, as opposed to his normally fantastic style.

American Chas.

Back to Chas! For some reason, Chas (played by Charles Halford) is American. I guess because NBC thinks Americans would get confused if a show had too many British people. Chas is also a bit of a gentle giant with a decent amount of knowledge on the occult, which is somewhat different from the source material. In the comic books, Chas is an average man with a bit of a temper. He also has virtually no knowledge on the occult and would much rather just sit it all out, unless his best friend is in trouble. In which case he’s always handy with a wrench or a kick to the nuts.

Also in the show, Chas is immortal. And this actually brings us to one of the most interesting aspects of the show. In Hellblazer, Constantine’s friends would often end up dead or worse, thanks to cons gone wrong and, sometimes, thanks to Constantine’s cowardice. But Chas is one of the very few recurring characters to survive. So it’s interesting that they’d play on that.

As if there wasn’t enough to dislike about this first episode, there’s also the no smoking problem. Due to NBC’s firm stance against smoking on TV, the chain smoking magician who is well known for chain smoking cannot chain smoke. The most you get to see is a lighter throughout the show and him putting a cigarette out as a scene opens. And this isn’t going to change, they’re going to be pulling this crap in every episode. 

But it’s just smoking, right? It’s not like it’s part of one of the most popular and influential Hellblazer stories.

Smoking is an integral part of the character, no matter how much people dislike the habit. If a network isn’t going to let you show that, you move on to the next network.

There’s plenty to complain about here and I could honestly go on forever. But it does have some good points. Chas is fairly interesting and Ryan does make a decent Constantine, despite the accent. There are a couple of scenes that really stay true to the source material, most notably during a conversation with a character by the name of Richie (played by Jeremy Davies), which show Constantine’s more threatening side.

It’s not the worst thing on TV, obviously. But it’s a terrible adaptation of the source material. If you’re thinking of watching it when you have nothing better to do, you should just give up. You’ll probably always have something better to do.

 
So! How did YOU enjoy the episode, Trash Mutant reader? Do you agree with Ross' review? Is a Welsh non-smoking Constanteen an acceptable subsitute for the real deal? Tell us in the comments! 

Tagged: movies & TV, Reviews.

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