Subject: Review: Spawn (1997)

From: Steve Kong <[email-masked]>
Date: 6 Aug 1997 04:03:29 GMT

SPAWN (1997)
A film review by Steve Kong
Copyright 1997 Steve Kong
 
Spawn aims to be a dark, broad, and moody comic book to silver screen
translation, much like the first two Batman films and the first Crow film.
It almost reaches this difficult goal, but falls short when a specific
character is introduced and the story starts to lag.

Spawn is about Al Simmons (Michael Jai White), an agent for some
super-secret government operation, A-6.  A-6 is a group that conducts
operations that most of us Americans don't know about.  Simmons, though, is
through with running these black-ops.  He has grown a conscience and wants
out of A-6.  Which is fine with his superior, Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen).
Simmons, as it seems, is the best killer around, and the forces of evil,
lead by the Devil himself, want Simmons to lead the army of evil.  The
middleman between the Devil and these mortals on Earth is an evil clown
(the unrecognizable John Leguizamo).  Simmons is killed in "one last
operation" and his soul is sent to Hell.  In Hell, Simmons makes a deal
with the Devil.  In order to see his wife, Wanda, again, Simmons agrees to
lead the army of evil.  But, as Simmons returns to Earth as Spawn, a hero
with a suit that morphs (complete with chains and a cool cape), his
conscience returns also.  With the devil's helper, the clown, sitting on
one shoulder and a new godly helper, Coglistro (Nicol Williamson), sitting
on the other, Spawn fights himself to see if he is evil or good.  There is
a subplot about a genocidal chemical that Wynn wants to unleash onto the
world, but that subplot falls to the wayside of the special effects.

What ruins the film is Leguizamo as the clown.  First time director Mark
Dippe (known mainly for his special effects work at ILM) does a great job
with visuals and setting the mood of the film, that is until the arrival of
Leguizamo.  Leguizamo fills his time on screen with bad one liners and
flatulence jokes.  You can see how this instantly toasts the dark mood.

As with most comic book to silver screen translations the story in Spawn is
pretty thin and the characters two-dimensional.  At the time that the Spawn
comic books were released, I was still a comic book reader.  In the comic
book Spawn, Simmons/Spawn are haunted by memories of his wife and past
life, and this causes serious inner pain.  And it is this inner pain that
motivates the comic book Spawn to do what he does.  In the movie the only
sign of inner pain is the two or three times that Spawn looks to the sky
and yells "Wanda."  Most of the other time, his acts are just of pure
revenge towards Wynn.

The special effects are the opposite of the story and plot.  They are
spectacular, and this is what is expected from a director who was once a
special effects person.  The most impressive special effect, and least
used, is Spawns cape.  The cape is wonderfully fluid, and if you haven't
seen it in the comic books, the cape stretches for what seems to be miles.
Spawns armor is also pretty impressive, but not as much as the cape.

The ending hints, most definitely, at a sequel.  I hope they do not produce
a sequel if it is going to be another mediocre film as this one.  The movie
moves particularly slow, and I found myself yawning and looking at my watch
constantly throughout the film.  This is a film that I would recommend only
for people to see on video, and only to see for the special effects.  Other
than that, go rent Batman and see a good comic book to silver screen
translation.

--
steve kong   ([email-masked])
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