Brunei bans Reeves’ new flick ‘Constantine’

KUALA LUMPUR: Brunei has banned Keanu Reeves' new film Constantine, an apocalyptic thriller that depicts demon possessions, visions of hell and a renegade angel, an official said yesterday.  

The movie has been deemed unsuitable for public viewing, Ahmad Kadir, the secretary of the Brunei government's Censor Board, said by telephone from the capital, Bandar Seri Begawan. 

However, he declined to reveal the reasons for the board's decision. 

Reeves: Plays an exorcist who dispatches demons back to the underworld.

Brunei has some of South-East Asia's strictest censorship guidelines for movies and songs, especially involving material that might be considered offensive to Islam. 

Constantine, which opens in the United States on Friday, is steeped in Roman Catholic mythology and features Reeves as a chain-smoking exorcist who dispatches demons back to the underworld in hopes of erasing a mortal sin he once committed. 

In one scene, Reeves' character lashes out at heaven, calling God “a kid with an ant farm.'' 

Satan also shows up in the movie's climactic moments, dressed in crisp white apparel and licking his lips as Reeves' character battles to stop a supernatural evil from taking over the world. 

The film opened last week in Malaysia.  

Malaysian censors edited out several curse words and rated the movie as having “non-excessive violent and horrifying scenes,'' but did not object to the religious material. –AP