Amph Constantine (continuing in animated form!)

Did anyone watch the premiere? Is it worth my time to watch?

 

The reviews seemed to range between "it's bad" and "maybe it will get better!"

 

It's on my DVR; I want to not multi-task while watching the pilot like I do with every other show I watch other than Person of Interest...

EDIT: Guy, they're completely retooled after... episode 3? It's pretty quiet but the lead actress is replaced at that point as she was, universally, considered the weak link in every single early review.

 

The only person who could play John Constantine is 1980s-era Sting, who he was modeled after.

(And that ship has already sailed....)

 

I'm planning on watching it after I get home from work tonight.

Evil.

 

I enjoyed the second half more than the first. Dude plays the character well. Not a bad start, but the limitations of the channel hindered it. Constantine would probably work better on HBO, AMC, or fx. With a little more money and freedom to actually have the horror portrayed in the comic. As is it's just cartoony scares.

This after all was the pilot, and changes have been made since. I'll give it two more episodes.

 

no, but i saw constantine (keanu reeves movie) a long time ago. i remember it sugging.

 

I adored the first episode, DC seems to be really excelling in the TV area at the moment. I'd love to see Swamp Thing show up at one point. Hope it doesn't get the NBC axe.

 

I found it to be quite a fun opener for the series, and the guy playing Constantine did a fantastic job. I am looking forward to future episodes.

Evil.

 

I enjoyed it more than I thought I would based on the initial ads. It actually feels like it takes its cues from the Keanu film in a few places. Some of the effects were cheesy, but that's TV for you.

I didn't like the way Balrog Nergal looked. I would have preferred something closer to the comic.

There appears to have been some kind of cast shakeup after filming the pilot, and you can tell: the lead female character is put on a bus off-screen and just goes away to make room for her studio-mandated replacement. The scene explaining this, if not especially hamfisted, is at least clunky and obvious. Also Jeremy Davies is supposedly not coming back either.

Oh, and Constantine has been changed from a bisexual chain smoker to a heterosexual-as-far-as-we-know nonsmoker, because television. Cigarettes and teh gay are bad, mmkay?

 

Really enjoyed the first episode of Constantine - incredible! Excellent combination of horror elements & just the right dose of humor. Haven't read the Hellblazer comic in about 20 years, but based on what I do remember this series is (so far) faithful to the comic. The actor who plays Constantine could have literally stepped out of the pages of the Vertigo series, i.e. the unshaven appearance, rumpled/sloppy coat/tie, etc. - amazingly perfect casting.

I was intrigued by the very end of the episode, i.e. the woman drawing endless pictures of Constantine, both alone & fighting villains/demons - when the scene began, I thought she was supposed to be the artist of the comic book (that the show is based on), but as the scene continued I felt that there was something more sinister (and less literal) going on here...

The main issue I had with the Constantine film (from about ten years ago) was that KR not only looks & acts nothing the character from the comic (not even close), but he's American, and the comic book character is from the UK. Sure, I know a lot of American actors can convincingly affect UK accents, but Reeves didn't do this in the film - and, even if he had, again, he looks nothing like the character in the Vertigo series. Very poor casting on the part of the film-makers, which is why I've only seen this film once & find it quite forgettable...

Conversely, the guy they chose to play Constantine in this new series looks exactly like you would expect the guy to look from reading the series; I can't think of a movie/TV show I've seen recently (that was an adaptation of a comic/book) in which the casting was so perfect...

That all being said, if you're not a fan of and/or have never read the source material, you probably won't care what the character looks like...That also being said, I'm guessing that those of us who have tuned into this new TV series have at least a passing familiarity with the Hellblazer Vertigo comic...

 

Bonus points for Social Distortion, I forgot to mention that...

 

Agreed - great cover of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire; I actually like the SD version better than Cash's original version...

And, though the show definitely took place in the 21st century, it seemed to me that it definitely had a '90's vibe/tone (not just because of the music) - part of this may be because I originally read the comic in the '90's....

 

To be fair, John's bisexuality barely ever came up outside of the Azzarello run's convoluted BDSM revenge plot and like one mention in a miniseries by Delano (Although on the flip side Delano is basically the authority figure). You can't bisexual delete something that was already bisexual deleted. Cigarettes, though, that's an unforgivable omission.

 

I really enjoyed the pilot and am looking forward to more. I really like the guy they cast as Constantine (I don't know anything about the comics, but I may have to look into them now).

I'm kinda sad to see they recast the girl, she didn't seem bad to me (just didn't yet know her character all that well) and I was looking forward to that plot line playing out.

I was thinking the same thing at first and thought that was a cool tie in with the comics, but I agree, I don't think it's quite that literal.

 

Some of the pictures looked like drawings of John Constantine taken directly from the covers of the Hellblazer comics, while some looked like the TV show John Constantine. Very intriguing! I think something is definitely going on (gave a good excuse to do a nod to the comics though!).

 

I too would like to see somp thang

 

Agree the Constantine should be smoking like a chimney in this series; that is really the only omission, however, since we do seem him drink - I'm kind of a purist when it comes to adapting comics/books to movies; I don't like to see a lot of deviation from the source material to TV/films based on that material, but I guess changes have to be made in some cases. Re: the lack of smoking in Constantine, I'm thinking it's because we rarely see people smoke in Hollywood media these days - I guess it's a "bad influence" for kids - as if not showing people smoking in TV shows/movies is going to stop them from doing it....

Re: Swamp Thing, other than the movie(s) that came out years ago (at least the first one was great), there was also a T.V. series back in the '90's - I think it was syndicated. I remember seeing a handful of episodes much later (on DVD), but each episode was only half an hour, and didn't really allow enough time to tell the story. Though it was intriguing, it could have been a lot better. Here's a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swamp_Thing:_The_Series

I wouldn't mind seeing a newer, better ST series, maybe based on the original Berni Wrightston '70's series, and/or the Alan Moore '80's series...

 

I shall view more but I am in the not that good but might get better camp.

I will admit I did have a geekout moment:

 

http://www.cinemablend.com/television/Constantine-Recasting-One-Its-Biggest-Roles-65190.html

There's the information on the recast; it looked like they might have recut the pilot to have her gone after the first ep but she looked like she showed up in the "This season on Constantine" clip package.

We'll also be meeting Jim Corrigan this season supposedly... (in addition to the Fate helmet above)

 

I'm really hoping the show really plays up the magical-supernatural DC heroes and villains. Give me Zatanna, Dr. Fate, the Phantom Stranger, the Spectre, etc... and I'll watch live every week.

 

i thought it was pretty bad to be honest, but i might keep watching because i really enjoy Matt Ryan, who was pretty amazing as the lead role in last year's assassin's creed. really strange though seeing him in the flesh-- assassin's creed makes heavy use of motion capture so like not only his voice but also his body language and even to some extent facial expressions are really recognizable even though obviously the game character looked a bit different.

 

I would have liked this had to be, say, and HBO series so it was not so watered own. WAY back when Mayfair Games released the DC Heroes RPG they optioned a rule for gritty sessions with Constantine as the primary example. I always thought Angel Heart was a great example of tone for Constantine. But, a network tv show gets the nod and we get an attempt at what should freak people out and scare them to some degree. If there was ever a need to "go dark" then Constantine should have been it.

But like I said, it didn't think it sucked and I'll give it a go.

 

^ This.

When I watch that movie I think "this feels like Hellblazer".

 

For those of you who complained about the lack of smoking in the pilot, he was smoking in episode 2. Pretty fun episode overall. I think I'm on board to see where they go from here.

Evil.