Spawn – Is it that bad?  Yeah, sort of

Nowadays you can’t move at the cinema for someone dressing up in a cape and silly costume and fighting the forces of darkness while flying around a major US city.  However, back in 1997 superhero films weren’t – believe it or not – guaranteed Box Office gold like they are today.  I’d never read any of the ‘Spawn’ comics, so I went into the movie kind of blind.  And I enjoyed it.  It was only a few years later during the birth of the internet did I realise how much everyone seemed to hate this film.  I’ve watched it again (a few times, believe it or not) and I can see where the masses are coming from.  It’s hardly ‘high art’ (but I enjoyed it anyway!).

It’s about a Government hitman who gets double-crossed by his shady employer (when will these hitmen ever learn?) and ends up getting killed.  If that wasn’t bad enough he wakes up after his ‘death’ to find he’s spent the last five years in hell and the devil has asked him (or rather blackmailed him) into leading his dark army on a siege of Earth.  Luckily, our hitman decides that’s probably not a great career option and with the help of a ‘knight’ (or rather modern day homeless mentor Obi-wan Kenobi figure who once was a knight) chooses to fight the forces of darkness instead.

When I first watched it I guess I hadn’t seen that many superhero films (Tim Burton’s Batman duo excluded), so I enjoyed the dark tone, the cool suit our anti-hero wore and the action in general.  Michael Jai White gives a good performance as the grizzled ‘Spawn’ and the real stand-out performance is the (totally unrecognisable, thanks to excellent make-up) John Leguizamo as the most memorable bad-guy ‘The Violator.’

However, I guess nowadays it’s fair to say that it hasn’t aged well.  Any criticism you may hear regarding how the special effects look like they’ve been rendered for a Playstation 2 are pretty on the nose (and even at the time I wondered why the beast-like Devil’s lips never moved when he spoke), but, looking at it afresh, I can’t help but notice how bad Martin Sheen’s dialogue is.  He’s supposed to be the main villain and yet he’s even more cliché than any Bond super-villain you’ve ever seen.

The whole film basically ‘tell’ not ‘show.’ Every piece of dialogue is some sort of 'set-up' to give the viewer information and let them know what's happening, solely designed to move the plot forward and avoid confusion.  ‘Spawn’ is never really going to be remembered as much more than a missed opportunity.  It’s certainly not up to the coherent standards of today’s superhero movies.  I still watch it, because – for some reason – I feel quite a twang of nostalgia for it (despite its numerous flaws!).  But even people who saw it back in the late nineties don’t hold it in the same – reasonably – high regard as me.  I hear there’s a ‘reboot’ on the way, so maybe that will bring Spawn to the audience he probably deserves to be show to.  But John Leguizamo is definitely awesome in this – if you hate absolutely everything else about this film, you should appreciate his performance as sheer evil foulness.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that