I don’t like comic books. For me, they’re about on the same level as vintage pornography--your dad’s old Playboys stacked neatly in a cardboard box in the attic. There’s something unfinished about them. They’re so basic, so primitive--they, like dusty softcore, hold interest only for twelve year old boys. Calling them graphic novels only annoys me. It’s a term used by rejects to justify or legitimize something that can’t really be taken seriously, like calling cartoons Anime just because the characters have big eyes (and what’s with the whole school girl thing?)

So it doesn’t surprise me, that when a comic book is made into a movie, the result is usually a little more than depressing. Often infuriating. Remember in Spiderman 2 when the people on the train pass Spiderman back like he’s Jesus? Yeah that pissed me off.

So it is with Constantine (based on Hellblazer, a DC Comic book that I know nothing about), a gloomy, dour film about gloomy dour people. I could have handled that film. But throw in an ancient spear of what was it? Destiny? Fate? I don’t remember. We’ll call it the spear of destiny--I wonder if I should capitalize Spear of Destiny. Anyway, throw in the spear, a dash of pseudo-Catholic theology which any good Catholic should be insulted by, a really ugly kid (Shia LeBeouf) and the craggy, downbeat faces of Keanu Reeves, Tilda Swinton, Rachel Weisz (is she supposed to be pretty?) and Peter Stormare (the most bizarre screen presence since Christopher Walken became cool) and you’ve got two (yes two) hours of unintelligible claptrap that has the great audacity to take itself seriously--at least make it campy. It‘s about a war between Heaven and Hell for fuck’s sake… starring Keanu Reeves. The man was in Point Break! How could it not be campy?

The Hulk made the same mistake a couple of years ago. Ang Lee did not understand that a big green man in purple pants is not the kind of material in need of a Freudian filter, that a story about a big green man in purple with a bat shit crazy Nick Nolte for a father is not King Lear and doesn’t deserve to be treated as such. In fact, no comic book does. Treat a comic book like a comic book and you might get a good film. Or at least one that’s watchable--Remember, the first two Batman movies? Remember how screwy they were? That was good stuff.

I won’t lie. I fell asleep about an hour into Constantine. When I woke up I walked out. I don’t know how it ends. Constantine dies, maybe? Or maybe he learns the true meaning of friendship.