History Film / Constantine2005

* BrownNoteBeing: One of Constantine's helpers has his hair instantly turns white, after glimpsing a demon being exorcised from a little girl.

* CurbStompBattle: When the BigBad is revealed to be [[spoiler: Gabriel,]] Constantine is effortlessly beaten. When [[spoiler:Satan turns up to save the day(!) Gabriel tries to "smite [Satan] in His honour!", only to fail because "Somebody doesn't have [Gabriel's] back any more", and then gets his wings burned off and gets blasted across the room.]]

* DemonSlaying: Constantine hunts down demonic halfbreeds and sends them back to Hell.

* FirstInjuryReaction: A punch in the jaw to the [[spoiler:[[HumanityEnsues newly-human Gabriel]]]] after the climax leaves them doubled over in anguish. Constantine quips: "That's called pain. Get used to it."

* BlessedWithSuck: Constantine, Father Hennessy, Isabel, and Angela each have supernatural gifts which make them not quite normal in the eyes of everyday people. Seeing a nice old lady get a NightmareFace or sensing the emotions of an event from touching the newspaper can lead to this result. [[spoiler:John even warns Angela that once her power is activated, she won't just see them, ''they'' will ''know'' she is seeing their true face.]]

* AngelicTransformation: In the climax, Gabriel is de-winged as punishment for plotting to unleash Mammon upon the world, leaving a pair of bloody stumps. Constantine introduces [[OtherworldlyAndSexuallyAmbiguous them]] to pain with a punch to the mouth.

* AmbiguousSituation: The film leaves it unclear as to whether [[spoiler:Chas has always been an angel, or if he became one after dying]].

* AmbiguousGender: The ArchangelGabriel thought [[ItIsDehumanizing he's referred to with male pronouns]], despite being played by actress ''Creator/TildaSwinton''.

* ArtisticLicenseTraditionalChristianity: The film borrows symbols and names from Christianity, but that's where the similarities end.
** A major plot point in the film is that, according to Catholic doctrine, people who commit suicide always go to Hell. This has not been the case since 1997, when the Church concluded that while suicide is a grave matter, people who take their own lives might still be saved. [[note]]In the Catholic Church, the three requirements for a sin to be mortal is that it be a grave matter, that it be committed with full knowledge, and that it be committed with deliberate consent. While suicide is certainly a grave matter, one or both of the other two requirements for the sin to be damning might be missing. Likewise, the concept of brain death means a person who commits suicide might be able to repent in the moments before death.[[/note]] Isabel's suicide likely wouldn't be treated as a mortal sin by the Catholic Church in RealLife, since she suffered from mental illness and wasn't fully aware of her actions; in any case, she certainly wouldn't have been denied a Catholic funeral for committing a mortal sin. Even more egregiously: Constantine is told that he's permanently barred from Heaven for attempting suicide as a teenager, since he was clinically dead for a few minutes (technically making his suicide successful). The only reason that the Catholic Church historically believed that suicide resulted in automatic damnation was that it was viewed as a mortal sin that a person couldn't repent, since you can't repent after death; since Constantine ''survived'' his suicide attempt, this wouldn't apply to him, and there's no reason he couldn't be absolved after repenting afterward. Its partly justified in Constantine’s case as most of his attempts at atoning are done almost purely out of the desire to avoid being sent to Hell rather than a being done out of goodness.
** Constantine states at one point that Jesus didn't die by crucifixion, but from being pierced in the side by [[UsefulNotes/HolyLance a Roman spear]]; upon hearing this, Angela (a devout Catholic) states that she already knows this from reading Scripture. But according to Scripture, Jesus ''did'' die by crucifixion; the Roman soldier only pierced him with a spear to test whether he was dead.[[note]] In those days, it was believed that human blood separated into its base components after a person's death. Most scholars believe that the line in the Gospels about "blood and water" flowing from Jesus' pierced side referred to this (the water in his blood had separated, proving that he was really dead).[[/note]] The novelization justifies this by noting that the Spear just played its part in the death of Jesus without being responsible for it on its own. There's also the fact that the Spear of Destiny (also called "The Holy Lance") is considered a sacred relic by the Catholic Church, making it pretty questionable that it would cause demonic possession.
** While the Catholic Church ''does'' currently recognize exorcism as a sacramental practice, it's a religious rite that can only be administered by an ordained priest (just like baptism, confession, and communion). No Catholic priest would ever officially recognize Constantine as an exorcist, since he's a layperson.
** The Bible that they use in Hell has an extra five chapters in First Corinthians. This is pretty implausible, since First Corinthians and Second Corinthians were actually the personal correspondence between the Apostle Paul and the Church in the city of Corinth; a Satanic religious text probably wouldn't contain a Christian apostle's letters to the Church of Corinth.[[note]] One possible HandWave is that Paul's other letters to the Church of Corinth were lost to human records (but known to demons), or were removed from the official Biblical account for whatever reason. But that just raises the question of why a Satanic text would contain Paul's letters in the first place.[[/note]]

* ShapeshiftingExcludesClothing: Balthazar after the BigBad reduces him to dust.

* FunnyBackgroundEvent: When Chaz suggests using one of the Crosses of Isteria to turn the water in the hospital pipes into hoyl water, Papa Midnite is smiling in a very impressed way.

** A major plot point in the film is that, according to Catholic doctrine, people who commit suicide always go to Hell. This has not been the case since 1997, when the Church concluded that while suicide is a grave matter, people who take their own lives might still be saved. [[note]]In the Catholic Church, the three requirements for a sin to be mortal is that it be a grave matter, that it be committed with full knowledge, and that it be committed with deliberate consent. While suicide is certainly a grave matter, one or both of the other two requirements for the sin to be damning might be missing. Likewise, the concept of brain death means a person who commits suicide might be able to repent in the moments before death.[[/note]] Isabel's suicide likely wouldn't be treated as a mortal sin by the Catholic Church in RealLife, since she suffered from mental illness and wasn't fully aware of her actions; in any case, she certainly wouldn't have been denied a Catholic funeral for committing a mortal sin. Even more egregiously: Constantine is told that he's permanently barred from Heaven for attempting suicide as a teenager, since he was clinically dead for a few minutes (technically making his suicide successful). The only reason that the Catholic Church historically believed that suicide resulted in automatic damnation was that it was viewed as a mortal sin that a person couldn't repent, since you can't repent after death; since Constantine ''survived'' his suicide attempt, this wouldn't apply to him, and there's no reason he couldn't be absolved after repenting afterward.