Director: Mark A.Z. Dippé
Cast: Michael Jai White, John Leguizamo, Martin Sheen, Theresa Randle
Have I Seen it Before: Yeah. I have a stray memory of being obligated to spend several hours at some mall with a parent, and managing to talk them—my happiest of rhetorical skills—into just leaving me at the miniplex so I could just see whatever was playing. Enter, Spawn.
Did I Like It: Did anyone*? I’m relatively certain I didn’t think much of the film when I saw it way back when. After further reading, it seems pretty clear that everyone—especially White, beating Wesley Snipes to the black superhero game by a solid year—associated with the film didn’t think very much of it. Even Martin Sheen, that paragon of earnest virtue**, spends the entire film looking as if he is waiting—however patiently—for his check to clear.
I’ve never been able to get into the comics, or even the semi-concurrent animated series, so there might not be a version of this film that is going to light my imagination on fire, but this can’t be viewed as anything other than a perfunctory effort. The number of ILM staffers and former staffers who are trying to make their bones here would seem to point to the special effects at least being special, but everything from the landscapes of Hell to Spawn’s cape feels like beta-testing for better effects in better movies to come.
*Ebert gave a thumbs-up, and between this and the mild Two Thumbs Up handed to Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997), I’m not sure exactly what was in the water of Chicago in the summer of ’97. It probably earned more than a few mid-level programmers a couple of extra million in box office receipts.
**Even when the film is slowly tearing him apart, Mr. Coppola.