Constantine

Maybe I'm spoiled on crossovers by the MCU, but I kind of want to see him
show up in Arrow's Starling City, or maybe Gotham; just to fuck with people.

About a decade ago, I went to see the film Constantine with my dad. It was... okay, but with Keanu Reeves in the lead, it wasn't very John Constantine. Now, I know only a little about the character, but it's obvious from the start that the new TV version, played by Matt Ryan, is a better adaptation. For starters, he's actually British, and kind of aggressively so. Maybe it's in the mind, but it strikes me that there's a particular kind of swagger that goes with all the Anglo Saxon swearing and Reeves didn't have it.

That being said, this Constantine is probably a little too clean, a little too heroic. He's a TV Constantine for a TV series, which actually makes him a decent match for the version I've encountered drifting in and out of Neil Gaiman's work in the Vertigo* imprint, but not quite as edgy as he is in his own title. He's rough around the edges, blunt as a hammer to the knees, but pretty clearly good, when the chips are down. He also doesn't smoke, but that's kind of unavoidable; a matter of regulations.

Within this limitation, however, Ryan is impressive. The supporting cast lacks a certain oomph, and outside of namedrops for fans of the comics none are truly memorable. Lucy Griffiths as the stock occult newbie is pretty, but bland, and I'm not surprised that she was dropped from the rest of the series, as the character brought nothing substantial to the table (her supernatural abilities notwithstanding; anyone could have those as the plot demands.)

The show plays out as something between a supernatural police procedural and The Surliest Hobo, but that's the pilot; it will be interesting to see how they go from here.

* Not Dark Horse at all; I am the world's worst comic nerd. I'm like an aspiring comic nerd; it's a sad state of affairs really.