I’ve mentioned this little factoid dozens of times, but I think it’s definitely relevant again today: I read my first comic book – as a little guy – all the way back in 1971.
Now, I don’t bring this up to suggest in any way that I’m any kind of expert on comics or the comics industry as a whole: rather, I’m just trying to demonstrate how long and deep my affection for these characters and their stories go. Over the course of a few decades, I’ve read titles that lasted only a handful of issues, and I’ve read rather long and reasonable success runs of some signature characters. Though I appreciate a great deal of what’s been accomplished with Marvel and some independent publishers, my heart has been and likely will always be a DC guy because – for reasons for too many to share – I’ve just always been drawn to Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman … mostly in that order. But like so many readers of a generation, I made my way around the block, reading just about anything that was popular in its heyday even though I recognized fairly early on I wasn’t going to stick with it.
Yes, Todd McFarlane’s Spawn was one of those books.
I picked up its first issue back in 1992, and I actually hung with it longer than I probably wanted, mostly because I dug its vibe though found its plotline more than a bit confusing. While I don’t remember all that much of the specifics regarding my disinterest, I do recall it centering around not quite grasping complete understanding of the world as envisioned there; and I suspect some of this involved McFarlane’s push to broaden the character’s horizons fairly early on by bringing in other writers to pen a few standalone issues. Regardless, Spawn and his alter ego Al Simmons definitely lit a fire in certain circles; and Hollywood – always willing to explore such phenomena – eventually jumped at the chance to bring this spectral anti-hero to life on the silver screen.
1997’s theatrical outing was directed by Mark A.Z. Dippé. The script shows attributed to McFarlane (clearly as the source material) along with Dippé and Alan B. McElroy. The cast included Michael Jai White, John Leguizamo, Martin Sheen, Theresa Randle, D.B. Sweeney, and others. Online box office materials suggest that the flick was a modest success financially, amassing just under $90M worldwide on a reported budget of $40M. While the end result did garner a 1998 Saturn Awards nomination in the category of ‘Best Make-Up,’ it also received top honors at the 1998 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards in the category of ‘Worst Picture.’
Ouch. That’s gotta leave a mark!
Let me try to explain why.
(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters. If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment. If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
Now, I don’t bring this up to suggest in any way that I’m any kind of expert on comics or the comics industry as a whole: rather, I’m just trying to demonstrate how long and deep my affection for these characters and their stories go. Over the course of a few decades, I’ve read titles that lasted only a handful of issues, and I’ve read rather long and reasonable success runs of some signature characters. Though I appreciate a great deal of what’s been accomplished with Marvel and some independent publishers, my heart has been and likely will always be a DC guy because – for reasons for too many to share – I’ve just always been drawn to Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman … mostly in that order. But like so many readers of a generation, I made my way around the block, reading just about anything that was popular in its heyday even though I recognized fairly early on I wasn’t going to stick with it.
Yes, Todd McFarlane’s Spawn was one of those books.
I picked up its first issue back in 1992, and I actually hung with it longer than I probably wanted, mostly because I dug its vibe though found its plotline more than a bit confusing. While I don’t remember all that much of the specifics regarding my disinterest, I do recall it centering around not quite grasping complete understanding of the world as envisioned there; and I suspect some of this involved McFarlane’s push to broaden the character’s horizons fairly early on by bringing in other writers to pen a few standalone issues. Regardless, Spawn and his alter ego Al Simmons definitely lit a fire in certain circles; and Hollywood – always willing to explore such phenomena – eventually jumped at the chance to bring this spectral anti-hero to life on the silver screen.
1997’s theatrical outing was directed by Mark A.Z. Dippé. The script shows attributed to McFarlane (clearly as the source material) along with Dippé and Alan B. McElroy. The cast included Michael Jai White, John Leguizamo, Martin Sheen, Theresa Randle, D.B. Sweeney, and others. Online box office materials suggest that the flick was a modest success financially, amassing just under $90M worldwide on a reported budget of $40M. While the end result did garner a 1998 Saturn Awards nomination in the category of ‘Best Make-Up,’ it also received top honors at the 1998 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards in the category of ‘Worst Picture.’
Ouch. That’s gotta leave a mark!
Let me try to explain why.
(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters. If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment. If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“An elite mercenary is killed but comes back from Hell as a reluctant soldier of the Devil.”
Let me dispense with one key observation right up front: the visual effects work – especially anything CGI-related – is arguably the flick’s single greatest disappointment.
I lack the technical expertise with which to fully dissect what exactly is wrong with so much of the picture. Having read a few reviews online which have gone into some very specific failures, I’d really have nothing to add of merit. I can say that the sequences staged in Hell (or Purgatory, depending upon one’s spiritual definitions) are particularly egregious, looking as if they had much more in common with late 1980’s television than they did late 1990’s. Given the progress that features like Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Jurassic Park (1993), and even Toy Story (1995) had so prominently shown, Spawn is definitely a theatrical throwback not in a charming way – by almost a decade, in fact – and it shows. Horrifically.
Unfortunately, my estimation of the picture itself doesn’t get much better.
Al Simmons (played with pure tough guy stoicism by Michael Jai White) is no noble warrior. A mercenary for hire, he’s built a career alongside military industrialist Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen, in a role probably best suited for Eric Roberts or Mickey Rourke) in dispensing chaos around the world. Eventually, his bad deeds catch up with him, and Wynn pays another hired hand – Jessica Priest (Melinda Clarke) – to K.O. his henchman once and for all; and Simmons goes down in decidedly fiery fashion.
Flash forward a few years, and Simmons finds himself on the streets of Rat City, a kinda/sorta world between Hell and urban America. Lacking any command of memories for this lost time, he sets out to find his love Wanda (Theresa Randle) and daughter Cyan (Sydni Beaudoin) only to learn that they’ve moved on under the love and care of Terry Fitzgerald (D.B. Sweeney), Al’s former best friend. Before these four can sort things out, Simmons is hauled off in the arms of the vicious clown known as the Violator (John Leguizamo) who’s been sent from the fire below seemingly to give the man his new marching orders. You see, Simmons is a Hellspawn – known more commonly as merely ‘Spawn’ – and he made a deal with the towering Malebolgia – one of Hell’s many kings – to serve (basically) as the head of Satan’s army in exchange for walking Earth to see his former loved ones.
Structurally, Spawn – as a movie – is a bit of a mess.
“An elite mercenary is killed but comes back from Hell as a reluctant soldier of the Devil.”
Let me dispense with one key observation right up front: the visual effects work – especially anything CGI-related – is arguably the flick’s single greatest disappointment.
I lack the technical expertise with which to fully dissect what exactly is wrong with so much of the picture. Having read a few reviews online which have gone into some very specific failures, I’d really have nothing to add of merit. I can say that the sequences staged in Hell (or Purgatory, depending upon one’s spiritual definitions) are particularly egregious, looking as if they had much more in common with late 1980’s television than they did late 1990’s. Given the progress that features like Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Jurassic Park (1993), and even Toy Story (1995) had so prominently shown, Spawn is definitely a theatrical throwback not in a charming way – by almost a decade, in fact – and it shows. Horrifically.
Unfortunately, my estimation of the picture itself doesn’t get much better.
Al Simmons (played with pure tough guy stoicism by Michael Jai White) is no noble warrior. A mercenary for hire, he’s built a career alongside military industrialist Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen, in a role probably best suited for Eric Roberts or Mickey Rourke) in dispensing chaos around the world. Eventually, his bad deeds catch up with him, and Wynn pays another hired hand – Jessica Priest (Melinda Clarke) – to K.O. his henchman once and for all; and Simmons goes down in decidedly fiery fashion.
Flash forward a few years, and Simmons finds himself on the streets of Rat City, a kinda/sorta world between Hell and urban America. Lacking any command of memories for this lost time, he sets out to find his love Wanda (Theresa Randle) and daughter Cyan (Sydni Beaudoin) only to learn that they’ve moved on under the love and care of Terry Fitzgerald (D.B. Sweeney), Al’s former best friend. Before these four can sort things out, Simmons is hauled off in the arms of the vicious clown known as the Violator (John Leguizamo) who’s been sent from the fire below seemingly to give the man his new marching orders. You see, Simmons is a Hellspawn – known more commonly as merely ‘Spawn’ – and he made a deal with the towering Malebolgia – one of Hell’s many kings – to serve (basically) as the head of Satan’s army in exchange for walking Earth to see his former loved ones.
Structurally, Spawn – as a movie – is a bit of a mess.
The story lacks cohesion in far too many places about Simmons, how he got into such lowly straights, and precisely what the extent of his powers are. Making matters even worse, there’s no fundamental rationale for why he has all these special abilities he never makes use of even after he’s grown aware of them, instead choosing to run about the screen in sequences of rather conventional fisticuffs and gunplay. There is a suggestion that his choices are tied to his usage has limits, but – if that’s the case – then why does his suit of armor seemingly do things without his knowledge or consent? While some could recommend that this is owed to the fact that Spawn is really only in relative infancy as a user of such gifts, there remain huge inconsistencies regarding why a man who can seemingly simply fly or float away from such carnage would choose to walk, run, or steal a motorcycle.
And why does he keep a weapons locker – one filled with CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS – in Rat City? Does he not know what he can do even after being told?
Because these narrative hiccups are perpetual throughout the picture, I suspect a great many viewers will find themselves scratching their heads. Just why is it that Spawn’s memories are gone? Why did the film rely on so many voiceovers from a secondary character – Cogliostro (Nicol Williamson) – while leaving him, too, a man of mystery? What in the hell was Wynn hoping to accomplish by essentially destroying life on our planet that in any way could’ve tied to a financial, professional, or personal motive? Erm … wouldn’t he die, too? Why couldn’t any of these faces – Fitzgerald, Wanda, or even the young Zack (Miko Hughes) – have any motivations or any sense of purpose other than serving as a plot point here or there? Who in the Hell wrote such gibberish, and how did it get past so many in the production?
And … had anyone of the screenwriters besides McFarlane even been circumstantially familiar with Spawn’s actual origins?
One of the special features on the Arrow Films set is an old interview with McFarlane who kinda/sorta clarifies that he and the studio agreed to drastically water down the dark and supernatural tones of the comic book in order to get a PG-13 rating for mass consumption; and perhaps this is the biggest mistake and disservice to an otherwise interesting protagonist. I’ve also read online that Spawn was experiencing an all-time-high in popularity in the year of the project’s theatrical release; and I’m wondering – in retrospect – if one beast actually fed the other, meaning the book bolstered prospects for the picture or vice versa. Whatever the case may be, I can’t imagine anyone watching this on the silver screen leaving the theater and immediately heading to the nearest comic book store to invest in purchases … except maybe those who wanted to understand what all of the fuss was about.
Beyond the script ambiguities and the lackluster effects work, Spawn really suffers from poor staging, always looking and feeling like a television project instead of a big budget motion picture adaptation. Most interior sets are small – Fitzgerald’s living room as a setting for what was planned to be the film’s big showdown – is particular vexing, every major player being crammed into a small venue with the fireplace magically serving as a portal to Hell (without any reasonable explanation for such a conduit). Furthermore, far too many character exchanges are accomplished via single-shot exchanges; and rarely does more than one player appear on screen at any given moment. This technique is widely used to TV production, but visionary directors typically make better use of space afforded by the silver screen. That’s just not the case here.
And why does he keep a weapons locker – one filled with CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS – in Rat City? Does he not know what he can do even after being told?
Because these narrative hiccups are perpetual throughout the picture, I suspect a great many viewers will find themselves scratching their heads. Just why is it that Spawn’s memories are gone? Why did the film rely on so many voiceovers from a secondary character – Cogliostro (Nicol Williamson) – while leaving him, too, a man of mystery? What in the hell was Wynn hoping to accomplish by essentially destroying life on our planet that in any way could’ve tied to a financial, professional, or personal motive? Erm … wouldn’t he die, too? Why couldn’t any of these faces – Fitzgerald, Wanda, or even the young Zack (Miko Hughes) – have any motivations or any sense of purpose other than serving as a plot point here or there? Who in the Hell wrote such gibberish, and how did it get past so many in the production?
And … had anyone of the screenwriters besides McFarlane even been circumstantially familiar with Spawn’s actual origins?
One of the special features on the Arrow Films set is an old interview with McFarlane who kinda/sorta clarifies that he and the studio agreed to drastically water down the dark and supernatural tones of the comic book in order to get a PG-13 rating for mass consumption; and perhaps this is the biggest mistake and disservice to an otherwise interesting protagonist. I’ve also read online that Spawn was experiencing an all-time-high in popularity in the year of the project’s theatrical release; and I’m wondering – in retrospect – if one beast actually fed the other, meaning the book bolstered prospects for the picture or vice versa. Whatever the case may be, I can’t imagine anyone watching this on the silver screen leaving the theater and immediately heading to the nearest comic book store to invest in purchases … except maybe those who wanted to understand what all of the fuss was about.
Beyond the script ambiguities and the lackluster effects work, Spawn really suffers from poor staging, always looking and feeling like a television project instead of a big budget motion picture adaptation. Most interior sets are small – Fitzgerald’s living room as a setting for what was planned to be the film’s big showdown – is particular vexing, every major player being crammed into a small venue with the fireplace magically serving as a portal to Hell (without any reasonable explanation for such a conduit). Furthermore, far too many character exchanges are accomplished via single-shot exchanges; and rarely does more than one player appear on screen at any given moment. This technique is widely used to TV production, but visionary directors typically make better use of space afforded by the silver screen. That’s just not the case here.
Burying White under layers and layers and layers of latex truly didn’t do the actor any favors, either. Granted, there was some necessity to it – Simmons was scarred beyond recognition in his death sequence – but the rather obvious thickness to the material likely impacted the man’s ability to emote in any substantial way. Aside from raising his voice on occasion and some mild intonations when called for, it’s still a very sedate look if not frozen visage throughout most of these 90+ minutes; and more flexibility was required to convey the depth of his personal pain in several key scenes. Sometimes, words are not enough, and actors need to convey something deeper through expression. Sadly, that never happens, and I think a good deal of the story falls flat as a consequence.
Lastly, there’s the thing of casting Leguizamo as a villain, something that might’ve actually played to the man’s strengths (i.e. infantile humor, volatile sways of emotion, farting, etc.) as an actor and possibly a person. As scripted here, the Violator never comes off with any degree of menace, making him more of a nasty inconvenience with a bad attitude and one whose personal scheme for global or underworld domination is equal parts confusing, sometimes contradictory, and unanchored to motivation. Instead of being a foil to an emerging superhero, the Violator really should’ve had some bigger and better explained purpose in life … or, at least, a desire to do something other than pass gas because he thinks it’s a profound observation.
We all can fart, John. That doesn’t make it screen worthy.
Spawn (1997) was produced by McFarlane Films (Todd McFarlane Entertainment), New Line Cinema, and Pull Down Your Pants Pictures. DVD distribution (for this particular release) has been coordinated by the fine folks at Arrow Films. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, I can still assure you that the provided sights-and-sounds – including those aforementioned vastly sub-standard visual effects – probably look about as good as they’ve ever looked … which is, frankly, to say “not very good.” Sorry, folks, but sometimes you gotta call it as you see it in completely unvarnished language. Lastly, if you’re looking for special features? To Arrow’s credit, the disc boasts two different cuts – the original theatrical one and a director’s cut with about 2-3 minutes extra – with two commentaries and a great assortment of extras (many archival) that should keep fans on the couch for some time.
Alas … this one is personally Hard To Recommend.
A total, complete, and utter misfire on almost every level. As much as I love comic book inspired properties, Spawn (1997) is one of those rare experiences that’s flat-out hard to love in any appreciable way. The film is so deeply flawed on technical levels but even the script ignores so much of what makes the central character (from the books) valued that – in small ways – it feels like an entirely different creation, something vastly watered down from the narrative and creative peak in pop culture. Add to that the fact that there’s really no stand-out performance from any of the principles and one’s left with little more than a rather generic entry in the whole Fantasy/Action landscape. The character – and its fandom – deserved better, and here’s hoping the long-promised theatrical reboot finally cleanses this first attempt from our collective memory.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Arrow Films provided me with a complimentary Blu-ray copy of Spawn (1997) by request for the expressed purpose of completing this review. Their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.
-- EZ
Lastly, there’s the thing of casting Leguizamo as a villain, something that might’ve actually played to the man’s strengths (i.e. infantile humor, volatile sways of emotion, farting, etc.) as an actor and possibly a person. As scripted here, the Violator never comes off with any degree of menace, making him more of a nasty inconvenience with a bad attitude and one whose personal scheme for global or underworld domination is equal parts confusing, sometimes contradictory, and unanchored to motivation. Instead of being a foil to an emerging superhero, the Violator really should’ve had some bigger and better explained purpose in life … or, at least, a desire to do something other than pass gas because he thinks it’s a profound observation.
We all can fart, John. That doesn’t make it screen worthy.
Spawn (1997) was produced by McFarlane Films (Todd McFarlane Entertainment), New Line Cinema, and Pull Down Your Pants Pictures. DVD distribution (for this particular release) has been coordinated by the fine folks at Arrow Films. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, I can still assure you that the provided sights-and-sounds – including those aforementioned vastly sub-standard visual effects – probably look about as good as they’ve ever looked … which is, frankly, to say “not very good.” Sorry, folks, but sometimes you gotta call it as you see it in completely unvarnished language. Lastly, if you’re looking for special features? To Arrow’s credit, the disc boasts two different cuts – the original theatrical one and a director’s cut with about 2-3 minutes extra – with two commentaries and a great assortment of extras (many archival) that should keep fans on the couch for some time.
Alas … this one is personally Hard To Recommend.
A total, complete, and utter misfire on almost every level. As much as I love comic book inspired properties, Spawn (1997) is one of those rare experiences that’s flat-out hard to love in any appreciable way. The film is so deeply flawed on technical levels but even the script ignores so much of what makes the central character (from the books) valued that – in small ways – it feels like an entirely different creation, something vastly watered down from the narrative and creative peak in pop culture. Add to that the fact that there’s really no stand-out performance from any of the principles and one’s left with little more than a rather generic entry in the whole Fantasy/Action landscape. The character – and its fandom – deserved better, and here’s hoping the long-promised theatrical reboot finally cleanses this first attempt from our collective memory.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Arrow Films provided me with a complimentary Blu-ray copy of Spawn (1997) by request for the expressed purpose of completing this review. Their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.
-- EZ
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