By: Brandon Wolfe
John Constantine, the “exorcist, demonologist and master of the dark arts” protagonist of DC’s ‘Hellblazer’ comic series, has made an appearance once before in the realm of live-action, portrayed by, of all people, Keanu Reeves in a 2005 film. Constantine, in the comics, is blonde and exceedingly British. Keanu Reeves is not those things. And though that film and Reeves’ performance are stronger than their reputations would suggest, such stark changes imposed on the character right out of the gate didn’t set him up to succeed with his fanbase.
NBC’s ‘Constantine’ is, to its credit and forgive the dumb pun, hellbent on setting the character straight. Portrayed by Matt Ryan, the character is blonde and British as all get out, he maintains his trademark rumpled, trenchcoated look and possesses the proper surly demeanor. All that’s missing, despite his constant tinkering with a Zippo, is the character’s penchant for chain-smoking due to network broadcasting restrictions against onscreen depictions of cigarette smoking (making it the one aspect that the 2005 film got right over this interpretation). Whatever you can lay at the feet of TV’s ‘Constantine,’ you can’t say they didn’t try to get the titular character right.
When we meet Constantine, he’s in a mental institution undergoing electroshock therapy, voluntarily. He’s seen and endured so much darkness in his life that he wants the psychiatric community to perform their own brand of exorcism and purge the demons from his head. But emissaries from the underworld won’t let him off that easy and he is given an insect-ridden message that an old friend’s daughter is in danger. With that, he casts aside the electrodes and gets back to work.
The girl targeted by the forces of darkness is Liv Aberdeen (Lucy Griffiths), a unremarkable girl leading a humdrum life who is blissfully unaware that the father she never knew was a major player in the occult and a colleague to Constantine. She initially resists Constantine’s help, somewhat understandably considering he’s a disheveled wreck who natters on about demons. But after a few close encounters (including, hilariously, the demon’s attempt to murder her by driving a van into her place of business), she comes around and, under his wing, learns that she also possesses her father’s gift to glimpse the lost souls still walking the earth.
“Non Est Asylum” suffers from serious pilot-itis. It has so much material to pour through to set up its premise and world, and such a brief amount of time to do it, that it feels extremely rushed without coming together as its own individual story, the way the best pilots do. Not only does it need to get across to us who Constantine is, including his guilt over failing to save the soul of a 9-year-old girl named Astra from eternal damnation and the fact that his soul, too, is damned, but it also needs to introduce all the players in his world. There’s Manny (Harold Perrineau), an angel who wants Constantine’s help in the fight against evil while not masking the fact that he doesn’t think much of the man. Then we have Chas Chandler (Charles Halford from ‘True Detective’), Constantine’s right-hand man who seems invulnerable to death. Finally, Ritchie Simpson, an associate of Constantine’s who basically functions as a one-man Lone Gunmen and is played by professional twitchy weirdo, Jeremy Davies. These are all fine actors, but none of the supporting cast is afforded enough time to make much of an impression.
The aspect of ‘Constantine’ that does make an impression is Matt Ryan, who hits the correct pitch of weary charisma for the role. Coming across like someone put Colin Farrell, the Matt Smith version of Doctor Who and ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s’ Spike into a blender along with a bunch of Jack Daniels, Ryan is note-perfect for the part. He looks, sounds and feels like John Constantine. But even Ryan isn’t immune to the pilot’s limitations. Constantine is famous for his caustic sense of humor, but the dour nature of the episode doesn’t make enough of an effort to showcase it. When Liv chastises Constantine for constantly deflecting emotion with humor, we can only assume he said some really funny things to her during the commercial breaks.
Still, Ryan is the reason why ‘Constantine’ is worth sticking with for now, particularly if the show allows him to cut loose once all the heavy world-building exposition is out of the way. Also, the series looks good, and many of the demon encounters are adequately freaky given the NBC context (between this and ‘Hannibal,’ NBC Friday nights are clearly willing to push some cable-ready buttons). Interestingly, though the pilot introduces Liv as the audience surrogate and sets her up to be Constantine’s companion going forward, she was replaced after the pilot was shot due to a reported change in direction for the series. That means this character, who is afforded so much import during the course of the episode, is awkwardly written out in the final scene as having decided it was all too much for her. So really, that means that the second episode will also function as a pilot, of sorts, for the remainder of the season. Given a rare second chance at a first impression, let’s hope ‘Constantine’ makes the most of it.
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