Review of Spawn (1997) by Gabbo P — 20 Oct 2012

Spawn is one of those films that I remember liking as a kid, but looking back on it, this film stinks, what made the original comic book and animated series great was the dark, complex narrative, and this film is a watered down revenge flick that is more dumb than dark, the VHS cover claims that the movie is "the special effects movie event of the year", when in reality, the CGI is some of the worst (even for a film released in 1997), it is especially unforgivable when you take in mind that Men in Black and The Fifth Element came out around the same year, and had outstanding special fx, sure, there's some cool makeup fx, but they feel overshadowed by the computer fx, the film also looks and feels more like a SyFy channel production as opposed to a theatrical one, but low production values can be forgiven as long as there's strong substance, and unfortunately, that's not the case here, the premise is interesting, and can work as a moody and violent comic book film in the same vein as The Crow, but the execution is what boggles things down, the origin of Spawn in this film seems rushed, and doesn't have much weight to it, we don't even see much of Spawn controlling his powers (which was an important part of the comic book), Michael Jai White is a great casting choice for Spawn/Al Simmons, but gives an adequate performance, mainly due to the poor script, most of the other cast members aren't that great either, really, the actor that shines the most here is John Leguizamo as Clown/Violator, whom is appropriately grotesque and vulgar, much like his comic book counterpart, the action scenes are also lackluster, now while this may not be the worst comic book movie (that honor goes to Catwoman), this certainly was a missed opportunity, and I would love to see a reboot that is more closer to the tone of the comic.