Spawn Recap

Jamie

I distinctly remember Spawn coming out. The comic was big in the household, but I was kind of young to read it… besides I never really got into comic books to that extent. That being said, Spawn looked cool and it was something fun to watch while over at a sleepover. Just young enough that things like Judge Dredd and Spawn were really toeing the line of “oh shit, things are getting real,” when it came to what we were allowed to watch. So we watched this at a sleepover. We had a ball. I remember loving it. Just laughing and laughing at The Pest star John Leguizamo. In fact that probably also factored into why we watched this movie. We loved The Pest. Anyway, that wasn’t the memorable part. The memorable part was coming home and having our older brother ask what we watched and us saying we saw Spawn and loved it and he was actually like… upset that we would find Spawn and particularly Leguizamo’s character funny in any way. One of those moments where I thought “wait, do I love things that everyone agrees is bad?” But that couldn’t be… because then maybe The Pest would be bad. Gasp.

To recap, Al Simmons is a CIA operative who kinda sorta is aware that maybe he’s the baddie. More specifically he’s getting suspicious that his superior Jason Wynn might be a baddie. Sensing he might be losing Simmons, Wynn sets up a job during which he explodes Simmons and sends him to Hell. When in Hell, Simmons is recruited to fight for a demon and lead Armageddon (coolio) in exchange for seeing his wife again. This is a monkey paw situation, of course, as he returns to Earth five years later and totally burnt to a crisp. His wife is remarried to his best friend and he starts to wonder about that deal he made. An old man named Cogliostro turns out to be devil spawn as well, but tries to guide Simmons towards a different path. A path of justice. But the demon helper The Violator is also guiding Spawn towards completing his agreement. Simmons, now Spawn, decides to ambush Wynn and almost kills him. Ultimately The Violator conspires to get Wynn to attach a bioweapon to his heart as protection against another ambush. But the real plan is to get Spawn to kill him and start Armageddon. Added incentive is a plan to kill his family. Ultimately they clash and Spawn is able to extract the bioweapon and is sent to Hell as punishment. He does battle with demon hordes and eventually is able to defeat The Violator and send Wynn to jail. Seeing that his family is happy, Spawn decides to dedicate his life to justice. THE END. 

This is a very mixed movie. I actually think if they had perhaps chosen a bigger (and better, sorry Michael Jai White) star this might have worked enough to get middling reviews (i.e. not-BMT). And if they had followed through on doing at least some practical effects for Hell, then maybe it might have even risen further because they were really going for it in the film and by all accounts just ran out of time and money. Leguizamo is kind of amazing and there is some really striking practical effects for the monster he turns into. But the rest is real B-level, almost straight-to-video, action schlock. So it’s kind of hard to argue super strongly for the good. It’s fun though. I’m a bit surprised there hasn’t been more of a revisionist history on it. Even Martin Sheen, who is absolutely devouring every scene he is in, kinda fits today’s sensibilities of someone really going for it in a genre film. As for An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn, stop being dumb The Razzies. This is just not big enough to require a roasting by anyone. Clearly hijacked by Eszterhas and he’s a weird dude. All that being said… Stallone is kind of funny in it. I love Stallone.

Hot Take Clam Bake! Spawn’s wife’s marriage to Cutting Edge ain’t lasting. She just got a look at Spawn. Sure he’s roasted and toasted, but he’s also cut and has a cape that won’t quit. Spawn is moping around being like “guess I gotta just fight for justice now and let my family be.” What?! No way. You no longer have a weird clown following you around. You no longer are an employee of Hell. You got your whole… uh, life, I guess… kinda… ahead of you. Find a steady job and I give it 8 months before she’s back in your arms/cape. Hot Take Temperature: Full body burn.

Patrick? 

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! *Gif of me dressed as a clown, popping my own head like a balloon, and then farting real loud* Let’s go!

The good? The film is generally kind of fun and silly and there really isn’t much else like it out there. For all the grief I remember Leguizamo getting at the time, he makes the film just light enough to be reasonable.

The bad? The film is probably too dark to appeal today. I don’t know what they would really do with Spawn today, the 90s was just a different time. Just look at The Crow, or Fight Club, or Se7en. The filmmaking and storytelling was just generally grunge and dark, or at least had the room to unironically accommodate it. I don’t feel like there is that space today. But that doesn’t make the film bad.

The bmt? Probably. For Leguizamo alone the film is interesting, and it is weird and borderline good, and I kind of generally dug it. It is very much like The Crow in that same way. No, not the new one … definitely not the new one. The original The Crow.

Jesus … An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn is basically not a film? I don’t really know what I expected, but this certainly wasn’t it. This really appears to be a film that some random people make on a lark, thought would be funny (it isn’t) and then mostly panicked when they realized they had made an unfunny, plotless, trash film. Then they pulled off the most obvious stunt possible (taking the director’s name off the film to get Alan Smithee in there for real), and seem to try and play it off as a joke. The film is painfully unfunny, and just generally boring. The only weird redeeming feature is the subplot with Coolio and Chuck D helping Eric Idle out. C, you have to watch it for bad movie cred, but it ain’t good.

I decided to ask the AI to generate ten keywords for me for the film. This is what it came up with: Antihero, Hellspawn, Darkness, Justice, Mask, Red cape, Costume, Supernatural, Revenge, Demonic Powers. I don’t mind all of those except maybe Darkness (I guess, but pretty vague), and Justice (which like Darkness is really just because those two words are in the tagline). The best is maybe Red Cape, or Hellspawn. So let’s get ten more film having to do with Hellspawn: 

Constantine (2005), End of Days (1999), Prince of Darkness (1987), The Prophecy (1995), Hellraiser (1987), Legion (2010), The Devil’s Advocate (1997), Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (2011), Pumpkinhead (1988), Ghost Rider (2007)

I do think those qualify, although some are probably debatable (The Devil’s Advocate?) I suppose if I wanted something a little like this Ghost Rider is the closest. Antihero, Hellspawn, Justice, Mask (kind of), Costume (? Kind of), Supernatural, Revenge. It really ticks those boxes. You’d think the sequel would have done it. A little unforgivable that is thinks Paradise Lost has anything to do with this stuff though. Now, do I care about this stuff? Not really, mostly useless for what we do here at BMTHQ, but I certainly can see why someone without my vast computational resources would find this appealing.

The ultimate MacGuffin (Why?) of them all: revenge. And I honestly think that it is. There is some information about Spawn generally being in New York City, I honestly don’t remember if it was explicit in the film, but it is too unclear to bother. The film is BMT for Leguizamo’s performance alone.

Read about … clowns I suppose, in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs