TALES FROM NETFLIX

Tales From Netflix are DVD reviews, where I tell you if a DVD is worth putting in your Netflix rental queue, moving it to the top, burying it at the bottom, or not even bothering in the first place.

CONSTANTINE

Constantine starts off really well, and features a ton of great cinematography, directing, and effects, the story's halfway decent too. I'm not at all familiar with the comic, having never picked it up, so I can't say how badly the movie followed it (but I hear it's not very faithful, no pun intended).

A little bit Blade, a little bit MIB/Hellboy, but yet different enough to entice. Keanu worked well for me in this role (again, don't know the original character), and I thought it was one of his better performances. Unfortunately by the end though, I found it dragging on a bit.

I'd still recommend you move Constantine to the top of your QUEUE

HELLRAISER VII: DEADER

My wife had on Hellraiser VI not too long ago, on digital cable on-demand, and it was a decent watch. I'd never really seen many of the Hellraiser movies, and didn't realize they were more phychological than overt horror.

VII is in that vein, this time we have a female journalist protagonist exploring a new bizzare cult in the UK.

It's watchable, but not much more. Put it at the bottom of your QUEUE

IMMORTAL

I caught a glimpse of Immortal via the DVD review on G4TV's Attack of the Show, and the cg/live action sci-fi premise was all I needed to queue this one up...

Turns out Immortal is a French (I believe) adaptation of a Graphic Album (European comic book), and the premise is as dizzying as the reviewers led me to believe. Just know that there are ancient gods come to future Earth in their hovering pyramid, and the story unfolds from there.

Immortal was visually stunning, and totaly immersive. The mix of CG and live action is a bit odd, mostly along the lines of Sky Captain, where you have live actors in front of cg effects, but also includes a fair amount of CG characters. So some scenes actually feature live actors with CG actors, all human/humanoid... odd.

Immortal is very similar in spirit to The Fifth Element, both being European sci-fi. Go ahead and move it to the top of your QUEUE. It's a great experience.