In the new action/supernatural thriller CONSTANTINE, Keanu Reeves portrays the title character, a rogue magus of sorts, born with the ability to see the half-breed devils and angels on Earth. Driven crazy by his gift, he commits suicide as a teenager, only to be revived with modern medicine. Now doomed to go to Hell when he dies because of his suicide, he has been battling demons who cross the line when it comes to their attempts to influence humanity in his bid to gain entrance to Heaven.

In this movie adaptation, John Constantine has been transformed from the blonde, British man wearing a tan trench coat in the HELLBLAZER comics, to the brunette, dark-coated Reeves, demon-busting on the streets of Los Angeles. He is a chain-smoking cynic, just diagnosed with lung cancer. Among his arsenal against the dark legions is holy water from the river Jordan, screech beetles from Egypt, dragon’s breath, a crucifix shotgun and a pair of mystic symbols on his forearms.

We get glimpses of Constantine’s forearm tattoos a few times during the movie. These are unique to the film adaptation, so don’t go looking for them in the graphic novels. You can see them peeping out of Constantine’s white shirt when he rolls up his sleeves. You first really get a look when Constantine and Angela (actress Rachel Weisz) are eating in a diner after he has traveled to Hell to see if her twin sister Isabel, a suicide herself, really is there.

They also make an appearance when Constantine submerges Angela in his bathtub to enable her to cross over briefly and visit Hell.

As part of the climactic end confrontation, Constantine finally “whips” out the tattoos the force some demons to take corporeal form. Repeating the phrase “Into the light I command you” he literally rolls up both sleeves and brings his forearms together, connecting the two designs. They appear to be aligned so that bringing them together forms the design in its totality. Each is a circle with a triangle inside it. There are arrows coming off the bottom of the triangles, and some sort of symbols inside them, but at no time are they shown clearly or explained.

Peter Stormare, who shows up in the final sequences as Lucifer himself, also has tattoos on him. However, this is more of the “teaser” variety, with bits sticking out of his shirt collar along his neck, and along his wrists at the ends of his shirt sleeves. All that can be seen are black spiky points that taper down and end. It looks like they feed back to something more solid and comprehensive but nothing is said of them and no more is shown. His version of evil is so suave and self-assured, the tattoos are a complete throwaway. So far, any and all pictures of him from the movie don’t reveal any of Lucifer’s skin art.