The problem with casting Keanu Reeves in the role of DC Comics anti-hero John Constantine, a chain-smoking, blue-collar bloke who happens to have a foot in a supernatural parallel world occupied by angels and demons, is that because of the actor's ethereal--some would say "stoned"--demeanour, he never for a moment convinces that his is the sympathetic point of view. Imagine Robert Redford as Snake Plisskin, or Pierce Brosnan playing Ash in the Evil Dead films: Constantine, if they were insisting on an American actor, should have been Denis Leary. By inserting Reeves as your avatar, suddenly the whole shooting match is about CGI effects and impossible things doing impossible things (witness the last two Matrix films). But even without Reeves as the central distraction, Constantine avoids much of what made the "Hellblazer" mythology so compelling (that Lucifer is beautiful, that Constantine is genuinely an asshole instead of a lovable loser), with its worst crime coming in making the film something of an anti-smoking tract. Displaying the Surgeon General's warning centre stage in one fiery moment and having the hero quit in the movie's worst, most toadying, most cowardly joke, Constantine amounts to a straw man.

The plot, a mix of several storylines from the comic, concerns the attempts of beautiful detective Isabel Dodson (Rachel Weisz, sorely wasted) to unravel the suicide of her twin sister. Apparently her death has something to do with the discovery of the Spear of Destiny (i.e. the spear that Mel Gibson used to pierce Christ's side) and the birth into the world of the antichrist. Enter paranormal investigator and sometime exorcist (his job description makes him out to be some kind of INS agent for Hell's illegals) John Constantine (Reeves), a man dealing with his own damnation, lung cancer, and troubling inability to craft more than one facial expression over the course of nearly two full hours. Together, Constantine (initials "J.C.," get it?) and Isabel mumble some jabberwocky that is only half-decipherable and almost completely meaningless when you do understand it. The high points come with Tilda Swinton, too brief in her appearance as archangel Gabriel, and Peter Stormare, officially portraying Satan at last; lowlights include Djimon Hounsou as a glowering (though everybody's glowering) witch doctor and Shia LaBeouf as the kind of "Robin" sidekick desperate comic book adaptations insert to provide alienated audiences a conduit for suture.

Although there are interesting images here and again in this predictably atmosphere-heavy feature-length debut from music video helmer Francis Lawrence, his wealth of experience matching sound and image amounts to very little in the way of rhythm. Lawrence does, however, give Reeves another chance to affect crucifixion in a weird echo of Patrick Swayze's long goodbye in Ghost, which makes this, what, three in a row now for Johnny Utah, what with his Neo born aloft by metal tentacles in The Matrix: Revolutions and having to pretend to be sexually interested in Diane Keaton in Something's Gotta Give.

Between its badly-fumbled tripartite story structure (the subplot concerning the Spear of Destiny is inserted randomly enough as to suggest a shot sequence decided by dart board) and a final act that has the grace of a tumble off a ladder, Constantine suffers from either a failure of vision or a rush to finish. More, for all the talk of hellfire and the consequences of faith, Constantine looks and feels a lot like bubble gum. It's slick, facile entertainment that falls back on jumbled mythology whenever a plot point is necessary and short-changes character development in favour of now-familiar digital trickery. (At one point, Constantine pauses at a broken-out window of a high rise, and the urge to yell "Jump, Neo!" is irresistible.) Chewed-up and swallowed, the film seems to constantly be a minute behind the cool stuff--lowering hopes, again, that Neil Gaiman's important "Sandman" run, a title that ran concurrent with the Garth Ennis/Jamie Delano "Hellblazer" arc, will ever find its way to the screen in an incarnation that doesn't suck balls.-Walter Chaw