OKAY SO THE ANIMATION MOVIE!

Right so I pretty much loved it??

this here now is quite a detailed take on it cos i guess i’ve talked back and forth about it so much i need give a conclusion

First of all: the set up, that also was the first eps that dropped on cw seed, is pretty much the weakest part of the film in my opinion. also for the film they got bit beefed up with other surrounding world and mood building stuff which helped.

So! Does it live up to the comic? well... yes and no. it has the wireframe of All His Engines but it does divert from it a lot. Most of the diversions are to cater to a certain idea, establishing the Hellblazer universe and tying into material people who know the motion work know. It’s not necessarily a bad thing tho, quite the contrary at one part or another: there is one plot twist early on that might actually be slightly more interesting than All His Engines had. The adaptation of the story clearly aims to bring more insight to Hellblazer as whole rather than adapting AHE, which im not opposed to at all if done well (originally i was really surprised by the choice of AHE to begin with). Unfortunately in some key parts of John’s history as well as key parts of AHE plot, this falls flat and dilutes some potential outcomes. Where it does live up to the comic tho is obviously the basis of the plot but also has very much the vibe and style of the comic (interesting as the art actually is very different and not to my taste). The comic clearly served as a platform to build this story from and they were very respectful for it as a source. They also took off some little off-character and off-canon things the comic originally had, altho on the other hand they did change and remove bits of AHE that were important for that storyline and suspense of it. There is a twist at the end that arguably, in it’s essence, is even more All His Engines than the comic actually was.

How it stands with Constantine Episode 10, Quid pour Quo? Well it’s quite at the similar place as ep10 and comic. I think the animation has more of the vibe of the comic while the liveaction follows the storyline more closely. The animation makes some huge diversions of the Hellblazer canon which i get to later on while Ep 10 sticks very much to the comic established histories of the characters and to execute the 2/3 of the AHE plot in the episode. I think personally that the comic still manages to be the most interesting of these three and the motion ones are tied at very close second place. Mostly cos the animation fucked up at places and the comic edges up by having amazing lines no one bothered to include.

There is a lot i really loved. In general the whole thing’s actually pretty great? I might need to actually rewatch the whole thing without pausing every 5 mins to write down thoughts or tumblr posts haha. I think it held itself together and someone not so emerged into the comics wont even be bothered by the things i find annoying.  It has a much of a noire theme like original comic did and is something i absolutely love. the other thing i did love was that it wasnt taking itself too seriously either and was very much funny when it needed to be and also when things were just so over the top. Just like Hellblazer is, that is very much a Hellblazer approach in tone. I did love the ‘party’ scene so much, it made me so happy in all it’s ridiculousness and how it was right down to the tee my interests ahah. There was couple non-comic plot twists I didnt even think to wait for and i did love some and appreciate others. John was very much in character, probably the most since Constantine, at least in live action, maybe even in comics. I did also really love how people reacted to him cos that’s another people get wrong a lot. He was called out for being a fucking idiot and a bad person but still getting appreciation and interest from his peers and demons trying to fuck him up. All the time they stuck to All His Engines as a reference point it was as good as it gets with these things. Loved Asa the Nightmare Nurse so much! She was cool! Also John got thrown around and had his ass kicked I also like that a lot like all you know. Those little inner demon gremlins were cute too i love them

Obviously there are some problems and things im gonna nitpick next. I’ve talked to an extent about the whole Newcastle thing being SO WRONG and how it could’ve been done right... or at least less wrong. I think on my first watch i initially said i don’t care that much but the more i thought about it and now that i watched it again.... i don’t like it. not one bit. I did also initially say I’m not bothered by the fact that ‘Chas’ in this is actually like Chas and Gary and couple other Newcastle people merged together but... in the end that bothers me too. I would be less bothered if these actually served the plot but they dont. AHE doesnt have these and it still works. You dont need “DEEP WHOLE LIFE OF FRIENDSHIP AND SHARED TRAGEDY” to make a mens’ friendship meaningful, that’s just toxic masculinity. Honestly as much as i love Newcastle as a plot and them introducing Nergal to the mix here worked, i dont think the whole 10-15 mins of botching it was worth it. Either do it well or leave it as a vague thing. One other big thing that always bothers me is the magic stuff. While this did try from time to time to have John just draw symbols, bleed a bit and chant some shit to call up some bigger magical entity, it did also make John do some glowy hands magic shit and referred to him as gifted or some other bs. That’s STILL just WRONG. Why is it so hard for these people to understand? HNGH. There was also some dumb bits here and there like John driving which annoys me so much. The end im not quite sure how to feel about but it’s also VERY MUCH AHE (to the vibe of it, not the actual end of AHE). I still dont like the art and i think they are dumb for the whole “London Hospital” thing, tho I’m mostly just amused by that. They did change some stuff from AHE which i thought was really cool on AHE so that kinda bugged me a bit. Not going too much into the details but it’s the usual diluting of comics plot twists. One big thing for me tho was the lack of a clear “trial and error” plot which is the key part of the comic’s plot structure and also was very much present in the Constantine episode but was missing from the movie. The movie on the other hand followed a different Hellblazer plot structure where “John has an absolute solution which has a huge cost but wont use it until the end”. They gave Chas’ sex scene to John which is a bit unfair. Also the lack of lines like “we bend down and think of England” and John’s joke about skull being a bad condom cos it’s got holes is a huge loss on it’s own too.

And against JLD movie? I do like this way better. Not gonna get to too many details here but this obviously is a Hellblazer based thing and not DC/N52 thing. Ofc this one has bit more canon fuck ups cos it tried to get to so many things but as a whole i think it’s better than JLD and a good adaptation of All His Engines.

tldr; it’s a great little movie and very much enjoyable. it has some obvious flaws but keeps up to the comic vibe, characterisation and plot.

Also let john say fuck 2k18