Spawn (1997)

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.

Beverly Hills Cop III (1994)

Director: John Landis*

Cast: Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, Héctor Elizondo, Theresa Randle

Have I Seen it Before: Never, and it’s a weird thing because I know I have seen moments from this film any number of times, as each of them tweaked a memory as the film unfurled. Swinging for the big Memorial Day weekend movie of 1994 as it was trying (and failed) to do, 30 second spots for this appeared all over my excessively re-watched VHS tapings of the series finale and fan-favorite marathon of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Did I Like It: Reviled for thirty years, and basically ensuring that we would have to collectively agree to eradicate even the faintest gleam of memory of the film before a fourth movie could even be considered, I went in thinking surely the film couldn’t be that bad. Certainly not as fresh as the original Beverly Hills Cop (1984), but Eddie Murphy in an R-rated comedy directed by John Landis** has to have some redeeming value to it.

And yet, no. This is some kind of weird void of anti-comedy. Did the editor lose a bet and have to come up with the worst possible takes for each shot? Was this the true start of the several years in which Murphy couldn’t find a joke in a film with a flashlight and the Lord on his side? Maybe all of these things, but I found this a surprisingly laugh-free endurance test, weirdly focused on the ins and outs of jurisdictional issues and theme park management.

Most people—including Murphy himself, if memory serves—have said that the problems center on him, not feeling the mood of Axel Foley during the filming and only taking on the film because it was a guaranteed big paycheck at the onset of what would prove to be a bit of a career downturn.

And then something occurs to me. I know now why I have such a weird memory for moments in this film. There’s only about 30 seconds of Murphy being light on his feet—or, for that matter, smiling—through the film, and that was what made it on TV way back when.

But you’re telling me that Landis*** couldn’t have at least made something lively out of this? Didn’t he make The Blues Brothers (1980)?

*Insert your own “what’s the worst thing John Landis has ever done” joke here, and be duly awarded your bad taste points.

**One more chance for that joke. Nothing yet? I’ll see if I can check back in before the end of the review.

***Last chance!