Review of Spawn (1997) by Thequietgamer — 01 Oct 2017

With corny dialog and an unnecessarily convoluted plot, this comic book movie is all style and little substance. It's biggest sin however is the tonal inconsistency. The childish humor on display clashes gaudily with the moody visuals and brooding style. Had this superhero, horror movie mashup leaned more on the latter of it's combination of genres, instead of having John Leguizamo get all irritating as the film's disappointing main villain, this could have been something to write home about. As annoying as Leguizamo is here I have to give the main credit for seemingly being the only person to really take his role seriously. The rest of the cast seems bored and resort to either under of over-acting. One could argue that these just aren't talented individuals, but when the likes of Martin Sheen are in your cast and you can't get a single human character to act believable, then you've got a serious problem going on somewhere.

Spawn really needed to lean more on it's horror elements. This tale of hell and demons is surprisingly lacking in darkness. It certainly had a heaping dose of visual panache for the time. The director really could have created some freaky crap had there been a better script that allowed for it. The CGI hasn't aged well at all though. Some of these visuals past the dated mark years ago and are just flat out embarrassing now. This mostly applies to the scenes that take place in hell. The final battle that takes place there is almost incomprehensible to the eyes at times because of how bad everything looks.

There was certainly a lot of potential here. A superhero horror movie would have been a breath of fresh air in the then still growing superhero movie scene. It would have even helped the movie stay relevant today, a time where superhero fatigue is starting to creep into moviegoers lives. Unfortunately, instead of frights we got fart jokes. Once you consider that along with the poor acting and writing, and it's not hard to see why this movie might be for only the most forgiving of Spawn fans.