Spawn | | Cast : | Michael Jai White, John Leguizamo | | Director : | Mark A.Z. Dippé | | Studio : | New Line Home Entertainment | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Dolby, Widescreen | | Released Date : | August 01, 1997 | | DVD Released Date : | June 07, 2005 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 20, 2005 | | Summary | Unholy Comic Book Adaptation... | Content
 | During the 90's one of the biggest comic book franchises around was Spawn. Created by former Spiderman artist, Todd McFarlane, Spawn was the hottest comic book commodity out there. Image Comics was, and still is the home to the anti-hero from hell, and with numerous titles bearing the name Spawn (Spawn, Curse of Spawn, and Hellspawn; not to mention the spin-off series' Angela and Sam & Twitch), the character was quickly becoming Image's powerhouse rival to competitor's at DC and Marvel Comics. With the characters enormous popularity, it wasn't long until movie studios came calling that were looking to adapt the anti-hero into a big screen movie, which is exactly what New Line Cinema succeeded in doing, just not with any satisfactory results.
"Spawn" essentially is the origin story for Image Comics' popular anti-hero. We are introduced to Al Simmons (Michael Jai White as Al Simmons/Spawn), an American war hero turned black-ops for the C.I.A. His latest mission went awry when civilians were killed during an assassination attempt, a job that the C.I.A. Director, Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen), had assigned Al to carry out. After this job, Al is set to retire, but not before doing one final job for the agency. This final assignment as it turns out is nothing more than a ruse, as Al is assassinated by none other than Jason Wynn, in a plot that comes directly from the pits of hell. Hell is fighting a war with Heaven, and Malebolgia the demon lord of hell, needs a someone to lead his unholy forces to the gates of Heaven and burn them down. That someone is Al Simmons, Malebolgia tricks Al into believing that if he leads hell's army then he can be reunited with his wife on Earth, and of course Al takes the bait. What Al didn't know, was that he wouldn't be returned until 5 years later and that he wouldn't look exactly like he used to (in fact, you could consider him a `crispy-critter'), his new charred appearance isn't the only change Al has to get used to, as his beloved wife Wanda has moved on with her life and is remarried. Now that Al's former life is officially over, Malebolgia sends his demonic underling Clown/Violator (John Leguizamo) to sort of torment Al and show him the ropes in learning his new hell-powers, and to give him the name `Spawn'. With his newfound powers Spawn has some plans of his own, in his mind Malebolgia didn't live up to his end of the bargain, so Spawn isn't about to lead hell's army anywhere, instead he's going to punish those who are responsible for his new lot in life, from Jason Wynn all the way to the depths of hell.
This adaptation of "Spawn" had huge potential, but it just didn't live up to it. Personally I'm surprised by some of the elements of the origin that were changed, especially since series creator Todd McFarlane was heavily involved with the making of this film. Some disappointments about the origin are as follows: Jason Wynn did not directly assassinate Al Simmons, instead he hired Al's best friend Chapel to do it (Chapel is not even shown in this film); Detective's Sam and Twitch are noticeably absent from all proceedings, I mean they could have at least been mentioned; and Terry Fitzgerald is a black guy, not a white guy. Story changes aside, there were plenty of other problems with this film, the special effects while good for the most part, the scenes in hell were terrible, clearly they were trying to reach too far beyond the capabilities of their special effects creators. And the biggest problem would have to be the story, it just wasn't that great of a story, the acting was good, but they didn't have much to work with. Frankly, more time should have been put into making a really top-notch adaptation that was more faithful to the comics than simply trying to cash in on Spawn's popularity at the time. At least the adult-oriented, animated series, "Spawn" on HBO was faithful, and truthfully much better than anything contained in this movie.
If you absolutely love the character of Spawn then you'll probably enjoy this film somewhat, but will still be disappointed by the changes to the origin and other missing elements that make the comics so great. Overall, a sub-par comic book adaptation, that could have been so much better than it actually was.
"Spawn" is rated R for violence and language. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 12, 2005 | | Summary | John Leguzamo steals the show again | Content
| John is such a versatile actor you'd he would be doing more movies. He has the same range of talent that Johnny Depp has,but where Depp has delicate and androgonus features, John is rougher around the edges but their talent is so obvious. John stole this movie, the CGI wasen't up to snuff, but I think most of these types of movie rely to much on that and don't let the characters do the acting or tell the story. I enjoyed it. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 07, 2005 | | Summary | Some notable computer-generated scenes | Content
| In classical music parlance, this movie is something of a Symphonie Fantastique. It has a lot of fantastic -- meaning out of this world, not necessarily great -- imagry but not much else to recommend.
Some of the other reviewers seem to know what's going on in this movie. It appeared to me the story was two enemies battle each other in a good vs. evil episode. I guess that's the story here, although that fat clown that turns into a computer-generated dragon won't go down in film history as one of the great bad guys of all time.
What I did find entertaining were the computer scenes in Hell, where the good guy and a buddy battled the dragon. That was pretty interesting, what with all the heat and flames and darkness along the way.
I am not naturally drawn to this kind of movie -- something based on a comic book that is a complete fantasy where just about nothing in the movie could happen in real life.
Having said that, I greatly enjoyed and admired "RoboCop" when it came out and set a new standard for computer-generated action. I thought about that movie while I watched this hapless drama unfold.
This film completely lacks "RoboCop"s wonderful direction, action-packed plot and wonderful characterizations but it did have those great scenes in Hell. So I found something worthwhile in this movie that kept my attention.
This is about as far from my typical fare as possible and I still wonder how I stumbled on it one night. If this happens to you, stick around and you'll probably find one thing here you like or enjoy. |
| Rating | | | Date | April 26, 2005 | | Summary | worse than bad | Content
| obviously the reviews written below me are either jokes or are people been paid in crackers to recommend this movie. This movie, without a doubt, is one of the worst catastrophes to ever hit the big screen. The story is incoherrent, the acting is laughingly bad and excruciatingly painful. Also, there is no reason why this movie should be rated R. Or hardly PG-13 for that matter. i just sat through the directos cut, the longest hour and a half of my (now) godforsaken life. It took an ENTIRE HOUR into the film for a single swear word- "a-hole", PG by MPAA standards, to emerge. Not a single drop of red blood is spilled, even when the pointlessly hot Priest gets shot in the head, a place where wounds tend to bleed slightly. The only violence is completely CGI. With only slight trimming this could pass for PG. This is not an R rated movie. The ending scene is stupid. The entire story is butchered and stupid. If you have, uh, any braincells you will agree with me on this atrocious skid mark of "cinema". |
| Rating | | | Date | March 22, 2005 | | Summary | One of the best comic book to big screen movies ever | Content
| I didn't take this movie seriously until I heard Michael Jai White was the guy who played Spawn. This is the one movie where he truly shines unlike something that he has a small role in (2 Days In The Valley), something where he's a complete waste in (Thick As Thieves), or something where he's over shadowed by someone (the talentless Jean Claude Van Damme in Universal Soldier The Return). He was the right choice for Spawn and he carries the movie throughout. Martin Sheen played Jason Wynn perfectly, John Leguizamo was funny as Clown a.k.a. The Violator, and Nicol Williamson was great as Spawn's mentor. The action was awesome, the special effects were great, and Michael Jai White was kicking ass and taking names. A great way to spend 90 to 95 minutes! |
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