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| All Images Courtesy Arrow Video, New Line Cinema |
There was a time in the 90s when, if you were a young gen-Xer or elder millennial who liked dark, edgy stuff, Todd McFarlane’s Spawn was the epitome of cool. When the series was introduced in 1992, it seriously shook up the world of comic books. It was dark and grim and violent and edgy in a way that mainstream comics of the time largely were not, and outside of a few more niche and limited-run series that surely helped inspire it (most notably The Crow and Faust: Love of the Damned), comic readers hadn’t really seen anything else like it. And behind the scenes, the series was just as revolutionary. Todd McFarlane had been one of Marvel’s most celebrated comic auteurs of the era, but he cut ties with Marvel in protest over how they treated their artists, in what he saw as a creatively stifling corporate machine. When he founded Image Comics, it felt like a revolution, based around the principles that the artists behind comics should be better treated by their publishers, afforded greater creative freedom, and not shackled by the limitations of having to stay kid-friendly. Between those factors on and off the page, it is no surprise that comic fans in the early and mid-90s went nuts for Spawn. It wasn’t long before the character spawned (no pun intended) a wildly profitable action figure line, a Super Nintendo game, an adults-only HBO animated series… and of course, an inevitable live-action film.
It's important to lay out this perspective because it’s now pretty easy to forget just how massive Spawn really was at its peak. Despite being such a phenomenon back then, and despite still being an actively-running comic series to this day, Spawn has oddly not endured in the pop-cultural consciousness in the way that many other beloved comics have. It was much more a phenomenon of its moment than an eternal part of the zeitgeist; a series that was the right kind of cool and bold and different at the exact right time, but not necessarily the kind of great story that remains beloved across generations. Perhaps this reflects how the series may have always been a bit more “cool” than it was actually “good” – even in its heyday, it received plenty of criticism for being style-over-substance and not the best-written comic around, and Todd McFarlane is universally praised as an incredible illustrator, but not nearly as well-regarded as a writer. Or maybe you just had to be there, as the right age at the right time for the series to resonate and feel like a breath of fresh air. But in 1997 when this film came out, Spawn was a massively big deal, and the movie was hotly anticipated and hyped.
And now, as the film creeps up on 30 years old, Arrow Video has resurrected Spawn once again on a lavish, extras-stacked limited edition blu-ray and UHD package. For me, as an elder-millennial who was awaiting the Spawn movie with baited breath and off-the-charts hype when it hit theaters, and who loved it at the time, but became less impressed on rewatches over the subsequent years, it’s a perfect opportunity to look back at this very specific pop-cultural moment, and see how well it holds up. Or doesn’t. This disc marks the first time I’ve seen this movie in close to 20 years, so let’s find out!
THE FILM:
Spawn tells the story of government black-ops assassin Al Simmons (Michael Jai White, in a career-defining role), who dies and goes to hell after being betrayed by his evil, wannabe-dictator boss (Martin Sheen), only to be drafted into a new army: the devil himself, Malebolgia, wants Simmons to lead the army of hell and bring about the apocalypse. But Simmons rebels, and sets out to get revenge on his killer, and then use his newfound powers to stop the demons of hell who he is supposed to lead. Equipped with a living suit of hellish armor that can turn into any weapon (and a massive cape that seems to have a life of its own), he reinvents himself as the shadowy antihero, Spawn. But hell does not like being betrayed, and tasks the grotesque and crass demonic Clown (John Leguizamo, absolutely devouring the scenery from under heavy prosthetics) with keeping Spawn in line. The premise is a little bit The Crow and a little bit Faust: Love of the Damned, the art style is like the urban-noir-gothic of Batman turned up to eleven, and the concept of a living suit of armor with an evil and bloodthirsty life of its own takes the ideas of McFarlane’s own Venom even further, and more directly into horror territory. Perhaps not the most original ideas, but a combination of elements assembled in a new and original way, and with style to burn, at least in theory.
The most impressive strength and most debilitating weakness of the Spawn movie is its obsessive dedication to bringing the comic to life in a perfectly comic-accurate way. For good and for ill, this is Todd McFarlane and company’s pure, unadulterated vision of Spawn on the big screen. On the one hand this means that at its best, the movie captures the comic’s moody gothic splendor, its superhero-story-by-way-of-demonic-horror sensibility, and its wild creature designs, brought to life via spectacular practical effects by the guys at KNB. On the other hand, this means that the movie has many of the same style-over-substance narrative problems that the comic was often accused of, some seriously cringy and clanging moments that would work in comic panels but feel ludicrous when played out by real actors, and some jaw-droppingly terrible CGI, during moments when the film attempts comic-book visuals that the technology of 1997 was simply not capable of pulling off. The movie has the ambition and hubris to go all-out in pursuit of its comic-book-adaptation ambitions, but does not have the good judgment to know when that’s actually a workable idea, and when it’s a serious mistake.
Spawn is a deeply odd combination of elements that really work, and elements that really really don’t; a spectacularly uneven combination of good ideas and bad ideas. In its best moments, it can pull off some truly great stuff. Its gothic visuals, in the dark back-alleys and dilapidated cathedrals of its stylized urban world, look fantastic – at their best, reminiscent of the beautiful visuals of The Crow. And when paired with a cutting-edge-at-the-time (and still very good) soundtrack of industrial, nu-metal, and electronic, it makes for a seriously cool time-capsule of the mid-90s. Michael Jai White is great as Al Simmons/Spawn, succeeding in both the action heroics and the sad, brooding darkness intrinsic to the character. This is absolutely a star-making role for White, who comes away looking like by far the best of the film’s uneven cast. And opposite him, Martin Sheen is excellent as scenery-chewing, mustache-twirling bad-guy Jason Wynn. Sheen hits exactly the right balance of serious villainy and over-the-top camp, and has a perfect understanding of the movie’s weird, dark-but-goofy tone. And when it comes to Spawn’s better qualities, the best of the best have surely got to be the stellar practical effects by Kurtsman, Berger, and Nicotero. Spawn’s living armor, the grotesque Clown, and Clown’s nightmarish monster form The Violator all look absolutely incredible, when they are brought to life by practical effects (big big asterisk there – more on that later). The Violator in particular has got to be some of the most amazing effects work that the KNB guys have ever done.
But then counterbalancing all of those strengths, Spawn has a lot of shortcomings. The script is extremely comic-booky, with on-the-nose, over-the-top dialogue which would work in a bubble on a comic page, but feels incredibly silly when spoken by actual humans. The plot is pretty standard, and not nearly as memorable as the visuals; it gets the job done, but that’s all, and elements of it feel rushed and perfunctory. The tone is also all over the place, swinging wildly between dark brooding gothic and absurd camp, in a way that sometimes works, and sometimes falls cringe-inducingly flat. This is particularly true of the scenes involving John Leguizamo’s crass-joke-cracking grotesque ghoul the Clown, who is definitely a Marmite or pineapple-on-pizza kind of character: either you’ll like him and find his schtick really funny, or you’ll hate him and think that he is way too much. Personally I think he is way too much, and the biggest example of something that works in a comic but really does not work in the film – but that’s just me, and I know his Clown has fans. I will absolutely hand it to Leguizamo though: he fully commits, going maximum-grotesquery with his performance, and powering through a physically punishing role buried under what looks like the world’s most uncomfortable prosthetics.
Then… there’s the CGI. This is where Spawn really flies too close to sun, attempting wildly ambitious comic-book visuals that had never been attempted before… and learning the hard way that visuals like that hadn’t yet been attempted because the technology just was not ready. To give credit where credit is due, in its best moments Spawn makes some really smart use of CGI to augment its practical effects, such as Spawn’s enormous and billowing living cape, which looks absolutely great when writhing around the practical suit worn by Michael Jai White. But in its worst moments… oh boy. Especially when juxtaposed with KNB’s stunningly good practical-effects creature, the shots in which The Violator is full CGI are an obvious major downgrade. And the sequences set in hell have got to be some of the most truly awful pieces of CGI work in any major studio blockbuster. Malebolgia especially is an embarrassing abomination of terrible graphics; the technology was simply not ready to achieve what they were going for, at least not on this budget. And I’m not even saying that based purely on hindsight from 2025; those effects looked questionable even to my young eyes in the theater in 1997. But certainly time has not been kind to them, and while the practical effects work in Spawn is still seriously impressive, the digital effects have aged like milk, and are unquestionably where the film is at its worst.
To say that Spawn is a mixed bag is a huge understatement. It’s hard to call it a good movie, but if you enjoy its stronger points and can overlook its weaker ones, it definitely can be at least a fun one. In particular, if you have nostalgia for the film, or for this mid-90s period and its aesthetics and music in general, then what a time-capsule Spawn is can make it quite enjoyable to look back on. But if you don’t have nostalgia for it, and don’t have any personal reason to vibe with how very very 1997 it is, you may find it a bit of a slog, and its weaker points may be impossible to overlook or be charitable about. There are understandable reasons to have fondness for it, but also clear reasons why it has not endured as a beloved cult-classic.
THE ARROW LIMITED EDITION:
While the film may be a mixed bag, Arrow Video’s limited edition UHD/blu-ray package is unequivocally great. It is packed with new extras, and they are all excellent. Whether you love the film or, like me, consider it to be a deeply flawed movie that is at least a fun time-capsule, you will really enjoy these extras. They present a very thorough, refreshingly honest, and genuinely very interesting behind-the-scenes record of the film’s fascinating production.
The disc contains five brand-new 15-25 minute interviews diving into the film’s production. The interview with Michael Jai White is fascinating; a disarmingly honest and candid chat about the film that launched his career. It’s a film that he clearly had a great time making (in spite of the hellish job of wearing full-body prosthetics for almost the entire shoot – an experience which he discusses at length), but also a film that he is disappointed in as a final product. His stories about the making of Spawn are very interesting and insightful, and how honest he is about his feelings on the finished film is very refreshing. A second actor interview, with supporting actors D.B. Sweeney and Melinda Clarke, is also quite interesting, although not quite as insightful and lively. An interview with the editor provides a fascinating look at how difficult it was to edit a film in this era that was right on the cusp of analog and digital. An interview with the producer of the film’s soundtrack gives some very unusual insight into the now largely lost art of assembling a great soundtrack album. And one of the best and most substantial extras is the interview with special effects artists Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero, which goes very in-depth into how the movie’s stunning practical effects were achieved. If you love practical creature effects, you will eat up this fascinating interview.
The disc also contains a couple commentaries – one from a film critic, the other from Todd McFarlane and most of the key members of the crew – as well as a bunch of archival extras from past discs. It is an incredibly thorough package, and Spawn fans should not find it lacking anything in the extras department.
The new 4k restoration on this disc looks fantastic. Detail is extremely sharp and clear, colors, contrast, and saturation all look great, and the transfer retains a nicely filmic look. Especially in the fully-practical scenes, Spawn looks great in this new presentation. However, the 4k restoration certainly does the godawful CGI no favors, and those digital effects have aged worse than ever in this remaster. The restoration makes Spawn look as great as it can – but how the film looks isn’t always pretty. The set also contains both the R-rated director's cut, and the PG-13 cut prepared for theaters. It's cool that they included both for the sake of completeness, but there is no reason to ever watch the PG-13 cut. The two versions are largely the same except for a few MPAA trims, and the R-rated cut isn't even THAT more violent. In this case, the director's cut is the only version that I could imagine the majority of fans ever watching.
While the film itself is a mixed bag that I would absolutely say is more fun than it is “good,” Arrow’s limited edition package is excellent. If you’re a fan of 1997’s Spawn, then this package is for you, and you absolutely should pick it up. If you haven’t seen the film before, or have not seen it in years, I would hesitate to recommend a blind buy of the disc, since the film definitely has its issues, but Arrow’s work on the set is outstanding, and fully delivers.
- Christopher S. Jordan