The original Constantine movie featuring Keanu Reeves in the titular role is finally receiving a sequel, 17 years after the movie was first released. Despite an underwhelming performance at the box office, fans have grown to love the movie over the years, recognizing it, per Inverse, as an underrated gem. Although the movie took a few liberties with the source material, viewers were entranced with Reeves’ performance and the unique vision for an angels-and-demons-style supernatural movie posed by director Francis Lawrence.
The DC character has seen a number of reboots in recent years, most recently in the form of Johanna Constantine, played by Jenna Coleman, in Netflix’s The Sandman series. While all these live-action versions of the character are special in different ways, none of them have matched the tone of the original Constantine. A part of the reason for this can be attributed to its strong cast of characters, which successfully brought to life the movie’s strange world of exorcisms and supernatural half-breeds. Here are the best characters from Keanu Reeves’ Constantine movie, ranked.
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7 Angela Dodson
Warner Bros. Pictures
Rachel Weisz has never failed to captivate the audience in all the roles she has played over the course of her career. The case is no different in her Constantine role as the police detective Angela Dodson, who becomes the vessel for the antichrist after the original vessel, her identical twin Isabel, commits suicide. Weisz’s performances are always imbued with a distinctive elegance that can portray strength and innocence at the same time. The character of Angela is mostly framed as a victim to evil supernatural forces, which is a common trope in cinema. Weisz gives a memorable performance for such a character trope, which could easily have been a bland one.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
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MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
6 Balthazar
Balthazar, played by singer Gavin Rossdale, is a minor character in Constantine without much impact in the main plot. However, Rossdale’s performance as the demon half-breed is eerily on-point, and plays a key part in selling the film’s setting. Dressed in a garish pin-striped suit and slick-back hair, Balthazar’s face is alight with devious cunning at all times. One might even compare his look with that of a sports car salesman — fitting, because the movie implies that he’s a sort of demon that makes deals with humans. Rossdale’s performance as Balthazar helps to establish the film’s fictional setting as a world teeming with supernatural half-breeds.
5 Chas Kramer
Chas Kramer, played by Shia LaBeouf, appears in Constantine as the young and overenthusiastic apprentice/taxi driver to John Constantine as he goes about his demon-hunting job. His role is little more than a comedic foil for much of the movie, as he constantly stumbles in awkward grace around the suave and sullen protagonist. It is near the end of the film that he begins to shine through as a genuinely bright student of the occult arts. The look of pleasant surprise from the generally unreadable Constantine only serves as the final nail in the coffin as Kramer heads into a terrible fate on his very first outing in the field.
4 Papa Midnite
Djimon Hounsou appears in Constantine as the powerful witch doctor Papa Midnite, now retired and running a bar for supernatural beings — a neutral ground where angels and devils can enter without worry. Papa Midnite takes his stance of neutrality all too seriously, and protects it with an intensely intimidating aura. He exudes a sense of formidable strength at all times, and that unshakable feeling instantly burns this character in your memory. Later in the movie, he helps Constantine find the whereabouts of the abducted Angela — but not before teaching him a lesson for disturbing the peace in his haven.
3 Archangel Gabriel
Tilda Swinton has made something of a name for herself by portraying otherworldly characters, a popular recent role of hers being The Ancient One in the MCU. It also helps that she naturally has an ethereal quality about her. Well, all these roles can be said to have started with this very movie, a role that broke many boundaries. Constantine’s Gabriel is pretty much a demented angel, who has come to view humanity as near impossible to save. She speaks of humankind in a derisive tone, and believes that aiding the antichrist’s takeover of earth is somehow the only way to bring salvation to the people. Swinton expresses her evil master plan with a sense of feverish mania that only elevates her performance.
2 John Constantine
Much of the film’s strong roster has just a few major scenes throughout the movie. While each of these characters has been masterfully crafted and acted out on screen, it is Reeves’ take on Constantine that sets the tone for the film. Reeves convincingly portrays an apathetic and self-serving supernatural bouncer, who is living a life with the sole aim of buying a ticket to literal salvation.
Before he was cast as John Constantine, the role almost went to Nicolas Cage, per CBR; and while he’s an amazing actor on his own right, we’ve already seen him in a similar superhero film — Ghost Rider. One need only imagine Cage change places with Reeves to understand the impact that his casting had in this movie.
1 Lucifer Morningstar
The peculiar nature in which director Francis Lawrence sought to keep the supernatural characters of this movie grounded in reality also gave way to one of the greatest portrayals of the devil in cinema. At the penultimate moment in the movie, Constantine decides to strike a bargain with the devil himself in an attempt to save the world from the devil’s own child.
Peter Stormare as Lucifer Morningstar makes no grand entrance; he floats into the screen dressed in a spotless white suit, but with feet dirtied by sizzling black tar. Somehow, this particular detail seems like the most fitting signifier of the character’s unholiness. Stormare’s devil isn’t vain, and doesn’t give a sense of being larger-than-life. He is playful, sinister, and constantly holding back a predatorial snarl. The ominous whisper with which he utters his very first lines — “Hello, John… John, hello…” pretty much tells you all you need to know about him from the get-go.
