Spawn

This film is just like the comic that inspired it: Great visuals (I still really like McFarlane's superhero art style), but much like the majority of "Spawn" stories, it really doesn't go anywhere. The set looks good, the characters look good, the cape looks REALLY good, but the story? Other than telling the origin and the standard "must stop the bad guy" motive, it doesn't do as much as it should. And yes, I know it's a Hell-based movie, but the metal soundtrack just got distracting and annoying, instead of enhancing the story like it should have. John Williams or Danny Elfman it wasn't.

Need to see the film? It's a great visual ride. Just don't expect much more than that. It did make for some cool toys, though.

* (1 out of 5) Spawn

Directed by : Mark A.Z. Dippé, 1997

Cult comic book comes to the screen looking like a bad computer game. Lacklustre story, illogically put together, some really awful editing and dialogue and finally the Tron-looking computer generated special effects (as in Tron from 1982, yes).

Joe Leguizamo is wickedly funny as spooky Stephen Kingish clown and the only highlight.

There was a time when comic books were not celebrated. When only the disenfranchised cared or knew about them instead of the mainstream. And in those ancient times — let's call them 1992 — no news was bigger than when Marvel's biggest creators left en masse to form Image Comics. At the time, these artists were derided as style over substance. Many of them weren't known for hitting their deadlines. Or even how to draw feet properly. But one of them — Todd McFarlane — took the opportunities that his new home presented and made the most of them, creating his signature character: Spawn.

Spawn is everything that McFarlane loved to draw: a muscular hero covered in spandex, chains and a cape that seems to be way longer than it should be. It was an instant hit, giving birth to a toyline, an HBO animated series (which still holds up) and finally, this movie.

Al Simmons (Michael Jai White, playing one of the first African-American superhero to be a movie lead, as this movie and Shaw's Steel came out at the same time) is a black ops soldier assigned to a mission to investigate a North Korean biochemical weapons site. But he's been set up by his boss, Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen) and is killed by Jessica Priest, Wynn's new top assassin. After being set on fire, he winds up in Hell, where Malebolgia offers him a deal. If Simmons will lead his armies to Heaven's gate, he can see his true love, Wanda, one more time.

You know how those deals with demons work. They're rarely fair. When he returns to Earth, Simmons learns that Wanda is now married to his best friend Terry(D.B. Sweeney, Fire in the Sky, The Cutting Edge), who is raising his daughter, Cyan.

Malebolgia sends one of his demons, Violator (John Leguizamo), to mentor Simmons. But there's also Cogliostro (Nicol Williamson, The Exorcist III), who also sold his soul to become a Hellspawn but who has found his way to Heaven.

Meanwhile, Simmons becomes Spawn and attacks Wynn, now a powerful arms dealer. He easily defeats his killer, Jessica, and escapes an attack by an army of mercenaries thanks to his new powers.

Violator — who either appears as a clown or an Alien-esque demon — gets Wynn to add a device to his heart that will release Heat 16, a biochemical superweapon, if he dies. Malebolgia wants Simmons to kill Wynn and start the end of the world. But Violator has his own agenda and nearly kills our hero before Cagliostro saves him. As he learns how to use his powers just as he also learns that Wynn plans on killing everyone he loves.

What follows is a battle on our earth and in Hell, where Spawn denies his contract with the Devil, bests Violator and returns to our reality, ready for the sequel which never came.

Spawn is very of its time, a film packed with early CGI (nearly half of its effects were unfinished until two weeks before it was released) and a soundtrack that mixes techno with hard rock and metal (the Atari Teenage Riot/Slayer mashup "No Remorse" is a highlight). It's a decent enough film but is a sanitized version of the chaos inside every panel of the Spawn comic. It just feels like something is missing. There's no real heart in the film, nor any real threat to our hero.

After years of talk of a sequel, McFarlane announced a new Spawn adaptation in 2015, with the goal of the creator writing the script and directing. In July of this year, it was confirmed that this was true, with the film being produced by Blumhouse. Here's hoping for something great.

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This is a tough movie to vote. I personally liked it more than not, but only because I have always been fascinated with comic book super heroes, but that's it, Other than that, and some occasionally very well done special effects, this movie pretty much sucked. The parts where Hell or whatever that ridiculous place is supposed to be are done so poorly I won't even bother loosing words about it. The acting isn't as bad as some claim (well, what exactly can you expect from Martin Sheen anyway)and Theresa Randle is gorgeous as ever. The atmosphere of the movie is very, very dark and morbid, so I would recommend this movie to comic-hero fans ONLY!

You can easily tell that comic book based movies were not a popular demand back in the '90s. Spawn is a result of a sloppy adaptation from a source material which is really difficult to rightfully adapt, special effects that were expensive and got dated after two years and a production company that didn't seem to have taken the making of this movie seriously. So logically it feels like a really poor effort, yet it has its moments.

Great casting choice in Michael Jai White, he proved himself worthy of portraying a broken man looking for revenge and a chance to see his family again. Action sequences are actually quite tolerable, and dark humour mostly provided by John Leguizamo's character (in a funny/disturbing performance) was done to a right amount, enough to add a bit of edge to the story and not much to harm the film, a trend you see nowadays in comic book films, too much unnecessary humour.

The special effects are cringe-worthy at best, which don't really appeal visually other than the cape and Spawn's overall look. So, there aren't many reasons to watch this film, well perhaps the hope that a new Spawn adaptation won't be as bad as this one. Even though I know it's bad, I still got a kick out of it, hence my 6 rating.

Oh, if you expect to see a good performance from Martin Sheen, you can forget about it, he's atrocious in this. All I want to do is forget he was in this movie.