In a trench coat and a tie, our hero travels around the world, to battle the forces of evil with a spunky, female companion. Yes, the tenth Doctor has regenerated and has returned as a demon slayer named John Constantine. Cue the intro music!
DC Comics is at it again, giving us geeks more quality television with the new series Constantine. In my humble opinion, I feel it is worthy to be amongst the ranks of Gotham, Arrow, and The Flash. Only two episodes in and it’s like I’ve watched two feature length films, and it feels a little bit like Doctor Who, for those familiar with that BBC series. These are both good things. This show, much like Doctor Who, is about a clever man who fights the evils of the world with a companion or two, by his side. There’s also a chap who can’t seem to die, and we’ll call him Chas or…Captain Jack Harkness Sr. It sounds like I’m mocking this show, but I’m not. I actually take comfort in this familiar formula. The two shows are similar, but not the same.
Matt Ryan is the man who plays the title role of John Constantine, a weathered individual with a rough British accent and a 5 o’clock shadow. He also has a habit of drinking, smoking, calling everyone “mate”, and getting very close to women’s faces. Dangerously close. He seems to also dress like he couldn’t be bothered to straighten and tuck in his ironed clothing and his tidy tie. Thankfully, Matt is charismatic, funny, threatening and stand-off-ish all at the same time. He’s a pretty good actor.
Constantine is teamed up with his immortal buddy Chas, played by Charles Halford. The man is not a fan of dying and he has been described as the silent type. This is funny to me because every time the camera is on Chas’ face, he’s talking. And not just one word sentences. The man is having actual dialog that belies his silent nature. As a viewer, I haven’t seen him enough to know if Halford is any good as an actor. But he gets the job done in the few scenes we see him in.
Angelica Celaya plays Zed Martin, Constantine’s second companion in the show. This is weird, because we’re only two episodes in and he’s going through companions like he goes through cigarettes. The pilot had, what I assumed at the time, the first female lead, played by Lucy Griffiths. I don’t know the inside baseball of this show, but it looks like her character was short lived as we get Zed jumping in to replace her. This is not a bad thing, because no offense to Lucy, but she is not the greatest of actresses. As a matter of fact, I felt her performance was wooden in comparison to the other actors. Angelica on the other hand, is more believable, and I hope she stays on a long time.
A little info on Zed, she has a strange precognition ability where she was able to see Constantine in her dreams. She paints and draws Constantine and has visions of things he had done. They find each other in unusual circumstances, and the Doctor…Constantine, brings her along for his adventures.
Now that you have a gist for the show, I have to admit that I like it, which may come as no surprise. I have a tendency to be biased towards genre TV, and this is no exception. I want to be supportive of DC’s endeavors to get into our small screens and show us fantastic comic book worlds. The pilot episode alone felt like a condensed movie, which is both good and bad. It was very fast paced, with Constantine checking himself into an asylum and then moments later, finding himself slaying evil while his angel pal watched on. Some may say there was too much going on in the episode, and I would have to agree. But the fast pace and mountain of story and exposition did not take away from the entertainment. I still had fun watching Constantine perform his dark arts.
The second episode, “The Darkness Beneath”, was a lot slower paced. You had a better grasp on the secondary characters and the overall threat to the small town was more palpable. The special effects were impressive for a TV show, with a monster that actually looked terrifying. The only thing that threw me off was the map covered in blood that the first companion helped create. I almost thought that it would be written out, especially since the show had changed female leads. Also, you only get a moment to see Chas as he explains why he can’t be in the rest of the episode. Oh yeah and the angel, played by Harold Perrineau, was nowhere to be seen. Finally, as an aside, I do find it funny that we never see John Constantine smoke. We see the puff of smoke from behind, we see him get a cigarette out of the package, but we never actively see him smoke. I wonder if that is just coincidence or a conscious decision from the network’s part to only imply that Constantine smokes, and not to blatantly show him smoking.
So if you haven’t started watching Constantine, I say you should give it a try. It’s a nice take on the monster/demon slaying genre (a la Supernatural), and it’s got a cool British guy as its lead. That seems to be the trend nowadays. 7.2 spirits out of 10.
