Subject: Review: Spawn (1997)

From: [email-masked] (Michael Redman)
Date: 8 Aug 1997 16:12:26 GMT

Spawn
A Film Review By Michael Redman
Copyright 1997 Michael Redman

** (out of ****)

The entry into the world of feature length films by the hero of the
best-seller comic book and highly acclaimed HBO half hour animated series
clearly demonstrates the old adage that length doesn't necessarily equal quality.

Spawn's daddy Todd McFarlane, the renegade comic book artist that quit Marvel
comics at the height of his popularity to form an independent company has
marketed his creation masterfully. There are several comic series, trading
cards, the cartoons, t-shirts and wonderful toys: all produced with care and
an artistic vision.

And now comes Spawn The Movie, a different kettle of fish.

Al Simmons (Michael Jai White) is a top assassin for a shadowy US government
agency who decides to hang up his big guns in exchange for a nice quiet family
life. His boss Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen in a wasted role), in league with the
devil, gives Simmons the usual retirement for people who know too much.

Waking up in Hell, he agrees to lead the armies of darkness against the forces
of light in exchange for seeing his beloved wife Wanda again. The Hellspawn
returns to Earth five years later confused and bewildered. His new supervisor,
Clown (John Leguizamo in a fat suit) is a wise-cracking motor-mouth from the
netherworld. On his other shoulder is Cogliostro (Nicol Williamson) who
attempts to convince him that Good is the true path.

The film is filled with good intentions gone bad and not just in the
motivations of the characters. Many of the movie elements don't work as they
are intended.

Spawn carries huge guns and rides a motorcycle. Presumably this is to show
that he is not familiar with his enormous abilities and at first relies on his
old techniques. What actually happens is that the all-powerful agent of Satan
looks goofy riding a bike through the city streets.

The devil himself is visually exceptional but for some reason is unable to
move his mouth when talking. Giving the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt,
perhaps he is communicating telepathically and has no need of a mobile jaw,
but it comes across as bad animation.

The effects are often exceptional, but just as often look like clumsy student
projects. The images of Hell are stunning, but fall apart the longer they are
on screen.

The film doesn't live up to its promise of a stunning look at the morally
ambiguous lead character torn between good and evil. What we get instead is
another tepid walk though flash with little substance.

[This appeared in the 8/7/97 "Bloomington Voice", Bloomington, Indiana.
Michael Redman can be reached at [email-masked] ]

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