The Movie "Constantine"

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However, I think that the obscenities throughout the movie tend to detract from the impact of this message. If there weren’t so many obscenities then that message might have had a greater impact.
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No disagreement here. There’s still much to dislike about the film. Personally I don’t have a problem with obscenities when they highlight the mood, which I think in this film they did nicely. Of course, I come from an environment where cussing is pretty common, and it doesn’t affect me the way it does for some.
 
Unlike pretty much everyone here, I found the movie inspiring. I agree with much of Ghosty’s comments on the original comments.

I would add that this movie might contribute to anti-Catholics shaking their heads, going “Yep, that’s what those Catholic do”, but they were going to shake their heads anyway, even if you differentiate latria, from hyperdulia, from dulia, for the umpteenth time.

And for many Catholics, the movie probably would represent an offense to their liturgy and beliefs.

But for people like me, who aren’t Catholic, but who have a certain connection to the Catholic Church; and who can see through the transparency of anti-Catholicism; and who can sort of identify with Neo…uh, I mean, Constantine’s struggle with faith, hope, and love; the movie can serve as a veritable epiphany.
 
No movie is worse than “Ciderhouse Rule” which gave us a romanticized view of abortionists.
 
Some of the stuffs there is, indeed, theologically speaking, a bit off; but I did find some good symbolism. Like where an army of demons attacked the female detective and the whole street’s lights suddenly go off, leaving the block pitch black - EXCEPT for one little store. There was a life-sized electric statue of Our Lady on the store’s display and all the little lights were on!
 
Some of the stuffs there is, indeed, theologically speaking, a bit off; but I did find some good symbolism. Like where an army of demons attacked the female detective and the whole street’s lights suddenly go off, leaving the block pitch black - EXCEPT for one little store. There was a life-sized electric statue of Our Lady on the store’s display and all the little lights were on!
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Yeah, for all the errors, I think the movie ultimately had a pro-Christian, and perhaps even pro-Catholic message. It may have been misguided, and certain aspects of the film could have been better researched, but ultimately it’s about God prevailing over evil, utilizing predominantly Catholic imagery and theology. I don’t think the intention was to bash the Church in any way.
 
Directors, producers etc. need to get their facts straight before they put them up on screen. The medium of film is very powerful indeed. People can get the wrong message from untruths or the “bending” of truth.
 
Well, it’s based on a comic book. The directors and producers can’t be faulted for faithfully adapting what appears on the page. It’s not as if any errors were done to intentionally bash the Church, either in the comic or the movie.
 
It is a waste of time to watch it. It’s just a Matrix rip-off with religion instead of technology. We Catholics should stop throwing our money away at Hollywood who doesn’t care about our faith whatsoever (as a whole), only about making money even at the cost of destroying our faith. If it wasn’t for fine upstanding people like Mel Gibson, I’d recommend escavating that worthless cess pool and deporting all the actors and actresses who despise our real freedom for their false sense of “worldly freedom” to do whatever they want and teach it to our impressionable fellow Americans.
Maybe we could just get the Mel Gibson types out of there and escavate the rest anyway…
 
In consideration of the post-credits ending, which shows that God was in fact present the whole time, I now tend to agree that the movie can be considered as having an overall positive message–although there are sitll some problems with this. During the entire movie I constantly asked myself, “Where is God in all this? I clearly see the Devil, but where is God?” This ending clearly answers this question, which, if left unanswered, suggests primarily only an unhealthy interest in demons.

I do wish, however, that the movie producers had placed this essential scene as the final scene before the credits, and not as a post-credits scene.
 
I do wish, however, that the movie producers had placed this essential scene as the final scene before the credits, and not as a post-credits scene.
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I absolutely agree. If it weren’t for the fact that I saw this movie with someone who insists that we find out if animals were harmed during the making of the film, I never would have had satisfaction. 😛
 
Saw it yesterday. It was quite funny and very well made, the demons looked like they were adopted from a Hyronimus Bosch picture, Heaven looked like Heaven in a Jack T. Chick comic, but the no-brainer came in the very first scene:

That “spear of destinity” wrapped in a Nazi flag, that “was lost since WWII” (quote from the movie), was lying safely in the Empirial treasury in Vienna since then. They made a quite real looking replica though.
 
:cool:

I thought I could offer a view from a non-practicing Catholic on the movie Constantine. I don’t consider myself a proper Catholic in that my parents pulled me out of church before I was actually confirmed; and though we went to Church off and on, they did not by any means live by the tenents. I am not well versed in the Catholic faith, I feel worlds away, but I do tune into EWTN on occastion, and I do pray (the lords prayer and the rosary) sporadically. That being said, let me tell you what inspired me about Constantine and made me want to get more into Catholic faith. Some of my views are completely opposite of the views already stated on this forum:
  1. I found the gothic/noir comic-book mood mixed with Catholic (or, quasi-Catholic) faith to be very appealing in an edgy and gritty way…reaching out to a pop-culture Catholic fringe demographic that maybe the faith doesn’t normally reach.
  2. I thought the dropping of the F-bomb by the Angel Gabriel was very powerful in that it showed that there are much bigger and more important things of concern and at play here than petty concerns over swear-words. The Angel dropping the F-bomb showed how serious matters really were… F-bomb, a minor offense in the scheme of things. Moreover, the F-bomb showed the Angel as slightly corrupt…and as we know about the Devil, Angel’s can fall from Grace. Gabriel was stunning, scary, and powerful…which added to the suspense and the God-fearing feel of the movie.
  3. I thought that the Catholic Church was portrayed as a powerful anti-evil source in this movie and the fact that even though Constantine was trying to buy his way into heaven, it was only when he truly made a sacrfice and put someone else before himself with SELFLESS INTENTIONS, that he earned himself some credit with God. Maybe people like me who are less versed in the faith are more persuaded by this movie because we are not fixating on all the rules being broken by creative freedom.
  4. Constantine giving the middle finger to the devil was a hysterical pop-culture way of saying Ha-ha Mr. Satan, you aren’t gonna get my soul. What’s so wrong with that? This was a tale of Good versus Evil and Good won. Moreover, Good was represented by the Catholic Church as being the ultimate source for all things pertaining to fighting evil. It’s not like when things got tough, it was an Evangelical priest who was consulted, it was a Catholic priest. The only kind of priest that is relevant and scholarly, in my opinion.
  5. I liked how this film reached out to us “normal” people who did not grow up with perfect lives, whose parents did not take them to church every sunday or live a truly christian life / those of us who have trouble relating to the Vanilla Catholics–i.e. Catholics who are perfectly conservative, who never swear, who are unmoved by pop-culture–i.e. Catholics who are not at all corrupt.
My question to Catholics (and this is a question I am trying to answer myself as someone who writes fiction and would like to be more Catholic minded in my fiction) is: Is there a middle road of communication where we can be more edgy and more pop-culture-like in art but with the intent of a Catholic message? Is there a fine line or is it all-or-nothing? If it is all-or-nothing that does’nt give us trying-to-get-there semi-catholics any room to grow in our art, does it? Because if I have to be a full-on catholic before i can try to attempt it in my art, then i will be forced to create secular art until i’m 80 years old or however long it takes to become a proper Catholic.
 
KJean said:
:cool:

I don’t consider myself a proper Catholic in that my parents pulled me out of church before I was actually confirmed; and though we went to Church off and on, they did not by any means live by the tenents. I am not well versed in the Catholic faith, I feel worlds away, but I do tune into EWTN on occastion, and I do pray (the lords prayer and the rosary) sporadically. That being said, let me tell you what inspired me about Constantine and made me want to get more into Catholic faith.
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If you’re already praying the prayers and learning more about the faith with EWTN, you should just go ahead and take the plunge. Get into a good RCIA program and get confirmed. I had a somewhat similar background except my parents were atheists. My grandparents were Catholic and that’s why I was baptized. I get inspired by movies like Constantine as well even though I know it’s inaccurate on so many levels. Feel free to message me

I know this is a really old thread, but I’m glad it’s been made active again because I LOVE Constantine and it’s interesting to get different points of view on it.

I like campy noir myself. I really like it when they do that with a Catholic theme. I understand it may offend a lot of people, and I can empathize with why. The point of view I take with things like this is that things have been fictionalized and sometimes skewed for the sake of a far out story. Things like this do to Catholicism what 300 did to ancient history. I really liked 300 as well. I don’t expect people to have the same tastes I do (I like Night of the Demons and Evil Dead so, yeah.) but these films are a lot of fun for me.

I think it’s possible films like this can do more good than harm for the faith. The struggle between good and evil is compelling to many people and making the Catholic faith the protagonist in the struggle can be a positive thing, even if it is misrepresented. Films like this only increased my fascination with Catholicism ever since I was a child back when the Exorcist was still relevant. It is definitely not the reason I decided to be confirmed but for the Catholics out there wondering about the impact of the film on non Catholics let me assure you as a former secularist with misgivings (to put it mildly) about monotheism films like this put a really cool spin on the Church for me. When watching things like this I rooted for the Church. And if it opens discussions about the faith up between people who don’t understand it and people who live it then that is a good thing as well.

As far as the Bible in Hell goes - when I watched it as a non Catholic I assumed the extra scriptures were heresies or something. I mean, if there’s a Hell Bible and a Heaven Bible which one would you want to read? The Bible endorsed by the Father of Lies? The one read by evil beings and eternally suffering souls from a land of torture? I think if both of those books were put out for the general population by God and the devil and everyone knew it came directly from the two of them including non-believers I’m betting people with any shred of sanity would embrace the one that came from Heaven. Maybe I interpreted the film wrong.

As far as your question goes for what is okay, what is not okay, I think there is a lot of room for personal opinion. I’m not an expert but I think as long as a story however misguided is setting up the Catholics as the good guys trying to protect the world it’s okay to enjoy it.
 
It is against forum rules to resurrect an old thread, in this case 7 years old.
If you want to discuss something you should open a new thread!!
 
I’m a die-hard DC comics fan. I loved this movie. I agree with everything brother Ghosty stated about this movie (especially his angst at the fake confession scene with the demon and the catharsis after Constantine deflated the demon’s balloon).

The best scene, for me, was when the devil was trying to take Constantine at the end, but because Constantine had made a selfless sacrifice, he obtained God’s Grace, and the Devil could not even move him THAT’S RIGHT! GOD IS MORE POWERFUL THAN THE DEVIL!👍

Blessings,
Marduk

P.S. Just had to get that in before the thread is closed.🙂
 
Yeah. I didn’t feel Keanu Reeves didn’t quite capture the non-chalant element of the Constantine character. Good story, though.

Blessings,
Marduk
 
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