'Constantine: City of Demons – The Movie' Is a Quintessential John Constantine Tale

Constantine: City of Demons, in its initial form, was a CW Seed web series that was somewhat connected to the Arrowverse.  Each of its first season’s five episodes is just 6-7 minutes long, and collectively, the episodes essentially covered the first act.  In my review for it, my bottomline asserts that it would have been much better if it had been released as a DC Animated Movie Universe (DCAMU) installment instead.  Well, the powers that be probably realized this as well.  Thus, instead of releasing further seasons in such format, they repackaged the series and released it as a feature-length animated movie instead.  And since it’s a standalone story in the first place, whose only connection to the Arrowverse is that its John Constantine is voiced by the same actor that plays the Arrowverse’s live-action version (Matt Ryan), and since its character design for Constantine is the same as Justice League Dark’s (and who is also voiced by Matt Ryan), it was easy to be retconned as part of the DCAMU.

Anyway, the plot involves Constantine setting off to help his old friend Chas, whose daughter Trish lies in a demon-induced coma.   They trace the one responsible to be Beroul, a powerful, Los Angeles-based demon who takes Trish’s soul as hostage so that he may coerce Constantine into doing his bidding.  To get the girl’s soul back and return it to her body before it’s too late, Constantine has no choice but to comply with what is being asked of him, that is, to eliminate Beroul’s demonic competitors in the city – each one being every bit as deadly as Beroul.  Moreover, even if Constantine manages to succeed despite the long odds again him, there’s no assurance that a treacherous, malevolent being like Beroul would keep his promise.  Facing such scenario in which victory is seemingly unattainable, John Constantine must dig deep out of his bag of tricks in order to overcome it.

For me, what makes John Constantine (as his depicted in the comics) an interesting fictional magician is the ironic fact that his extensive magical skills and knowledge are not his most invaluable weapons.  Rather, that would be his wits and cunning.  He’s not always the most powerful person in the room, but because of being a proficient lateral thinker, manipulator, and con man, he engineers favorable situations where he will best his opponents, even those who are more powerful than him.  Nevertheless, although he comes out on top of the direst of adversities, he and the people around him are still often left with significant damage to reckon with.

Constantine: City of Demons – The Movie nails this aspect of John Constantine, and that’s basically what makes it pretty good albeit its flaws.  For by capturing this, the quintessential atmosphere of a John Constantine adventure – dark, eerie, thrilling, surprising, and constantly escalating – effortlessly follows.