Review of Spawn (1997) by Hillary D — 02 Jun 2012

*SPOILERS*.

Though the movie came out when I was only around six years old, "Spawn" (1997) became of my favorite movies when I hit my early teens and had it on DVD. I mean come on: a superhero from Hell? That's already grounds for bad assness. Even when I started getting into comics and began reading the Spawn series, I still held very high regard for the film partly because I naturally just like the character of Spawn, and I thought that the cast was pretty much perfect for the roles they were in.

But I had just recently seen Spawn after not watching it for years and now, after it watching it completely objectively without my personal bias, I had gained new thoughts and opinions of a movie I had loved for so long. There is only one feeling I can convey about this movie, albeit, it's a very strong one: disappointment. Believe me, there is only one thing worse than watching a wretchedly bad movie is a movie that you are so excited to see or a movie you love that you haven't seen in a long time and it just totally disappoints you. Even with the star studded cast headlining the movie, "Spawn" just failed to deliver any sort of emotional or sentimental punch to it's audience that the comics had so well established and channeled to it's readers. And I must say, I can't really pinpoint any major, major flaws in the film to where I can say, "Yeah, that's what really downed this movie." I believe it's a combination of some smaller things that just accumulate throughout the movie's duration that sank the ship. Want to know what they are? Well, here ya go!

First off, I want to reiterate that I believe that the main cast was perfect for their roles. Michael Jai White is Al Simmons no question about it. While I think someone else could have also portrayed Jason Wynn, Martin Sheen was an amazing choice even though he was most likely chosen to bring ticket sales. I thought he did a superb job as the insane and egotistical Wynn. John Leguizamo is one of my favorite actors due to his range and versatility as an actor so if anyone was going to be The Violator, it had to be Leguizamo. BUT...

But everybody else was basically a cardboard cut out without any intensity, raw emotion, or really anything at all from their respective characters. Wanda was an exceptionally boring and emotionless love interest. Terry Fitzgerald did not act like Al Simmons' best friend at all. Jessica Priest (who I assume is supposed to be equivalent to Chapel) is hilariously unimposing, stupid, and a brown-noser. Hell the extras were more interesting than they were. However, the most disappointing acting performance to me was actually from Nichol Williamson as Cogliostro. Williamson essentially played the part of Merlin again from the 1981 movie "Excalibur" in this movie. While Cogliostro, Cog for short, has some similarities to Merlin, in many ways they are vastly different. I don't know, it just seems like Mr. Williamson didn't put a lot of effort into the character and went the route of, "Well, he's old, wise and medieval. Merlin was old, wise, not quite medieval but he was in those times. I acted as Merlin fifteen years earlier. Ah to hell with it I'll just play Merlin again and collect my paycheck." Without an effective supporting cast, everything that the protagonist and other main characters becomes pointless which makes the story pointless. That's why it's called a S-U-P-P-O-R-T-I-N-G cast.

Another thing that I feel diminished the movie was the very clunky, bland, boring, and dumb dialogue. I think the writers of this movie hoped that you would be dazzled so much by the "UH-mazing" special effects that you would forget that the actors actually speak. Well, I certainly wasn't entranced by the overblown lame special effects and of course I did notice the dialogue. Though I expected The Violator to be filled with cheesy material to blabber out, I did not expect that they would actually bring more of the Clown out than the evil sadistic demon part that makes the character cool and unique. Spawn's dialogue is just a damn travesty. Emotionally charged lines that were supposed to make you feel sentimental and conjure some feelings were so laughable, there were times that you thought you were watching an awful Lifetime soap opera than a movie about a vengeful Hellspawn. That's actually what the whole movie seemed to be: a dark, boring, and unusual soap opera with short, random bursts of action that leaves you scratching your head as to how it actually got crazy so fast.

Lastly, the overrated special effects, was the proverbial nail in the coffin for the movie. The production team was banking a lot on the special effects but with a budget of only 40 million dollars and most of it going to Martin Sheen and John Leguizamo, those special effects and CGI had to be reduced a bit. But I remember as a kid, when Spawn was about to hit theaters, the heavy advertisement for the movie and how it's the best special effects movie in years. In that regard, Spawn failed to make up on it's promise. The special effects were not bad overall but they certainly were not great. Because they failed to produce anything really new or unique or exciting in their special effects, it automatically keeps Spawn from being above an average movie.

Is Spawn a really bad movie? Of course not. It does have it's moments where it things are enjoyable such as the fight scene at the party, the Violator's first transformation and ensuing fight scene with Spawn, and Al Simmon's death and his fall to Hell. However, there are too many things wrong with it to make it a good movie, but it mostly comes from the screenplay with it's crappy dialogue and lack of character development via no significance from the supporting cast. But I personally think it's a fair movie but honestly, if I see Spawn on TV, I will look everywhere else to find a better movie before I even consider watching it. Even if it comes to that point, I would rather instead watch something on National Geographic. No matter what though, Spawn will remain a fixture of my childhood and I will always cherish it as the first movie I watched totally objectively and critically.

But it still sucks.