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Dom Robinson reviews
Sword to justice.Distributed by
Entertainment In Video
- Cat.no: EDV 9002
- Cert: 15
- Running time: 95 minutes
- Year: 1997
- Pressing: 1999
- Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)
- Chapters: 24
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-enhanced: No
- Macrovision: No
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, trailer, ‘making of’ featurette, Todd McFarlane interview,music video, director’s commentary track.
Director:
- Mark A.Z. Dippe
Producer:
- Clint Goldman
Screenplay:
- Alan McElroy
Music:
- Graeme Revell
Cast:
- Al Simmons/Spawn: Michael Jai White (City of Industry, Tyson: The True Story, Universal Soldier, Universal Soldier: The Return)
Clown: John Leguizamo (Executive Decision, The Fan, Romeo and Juliet, Super Mario Brothers, To Wong Foo…)
Jason Wynn: Martin Sheen (Apocalypse Now, Badlands, Firestarter, Gandhi, Gettysburg, Hear No Evil, Hostile Waters, Roswell, Storm, Wall Street, TV: Babylon 5)
Wanda Blake: Theresa Randle (Bad Boys, Beverly Hills Cop 3, Girl 6, Sugar Hill)
Cogliostro: Nicol Williamson (Black Widow, Excalibur, Exorcist III, The Hour of the Pig, Venom, Wind in the Willows)
Terry Fitzgerald: D.B. Sweeney (The Cutting Edge, Fire in the Sky, Hear No Evil, Memphis Belle)
Jessica Priest: Melinda Clarke (Killer Tongue)
Spawn: Director’s Cutis the big-screen adaptation of Todd McFarlane’s animated reluctant hero. Born asAl Simmons he has everything to live for when married to Wanda Theresa Randle,but then is murdered by the powerful mad CIA head Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen)by being set on fire at the bio-chemical plant and left to die amongst theensuing explosion. Five years later he resurfaces scarred for life and bent onrevenge for what Wynn did to him.
However, killing Wynn won’t be quite that easy. Like most movie villains, he has aplan for world domination which involves making threats and killing anyone who getsin his way. He has developed the Heat-16 virus bomb, a device powerful enough to killthe entire population of Earth and he’s not afraid to use it. In fact, Wynnproclaims :
Hence, Al will have his work cut out as Spawn because after being sent to Hell whendeath comes calling, he must agree to lead Hell’s army and kill Wynn just to seehis beloved Wanda again. Just to make his job harder is Hell’s representative, Clown(a completely unrecognisable John Leguizamo), who tries to goad Spawn intocommitting just one more sin and then Spawn’s soul will go to hell – permanently.About the only one on Spawn’s side is Cogliostro (Nicol Williamson) who actsas his mentor and helps him as best as he can. Finally, D.B. Sweeney, lendssupport as Al’s colleague Terry Fitzgerald, but he’s not quite all he seems at first.Curiously, his character’s name and that of the dog in the film, Spaz, appear to bethe name and nickname, respectively, of two of the crew working on the film.Coincidence or intention ?
Even super-heroes can have chip-pan fire problems.
There’s a fair bit of violence in this film, but there was less in the 12-certificatecinema release. When it reached video, the BBFC agreed to two versions coming out torent – the same version in pan-and-scan as well as a 15-cert Director’s Cut, also inpan-and-scan, which added approximately a minute to the running time. Both versionswere also available to buy six months later, with a widescreen version being releasedfor the director’s cut.
The question I want to ask is, since EiV would have to pay the full whack to the BBFCfor the 12-cert rental video and the 15-cert pan-and-scan version, the widescreenequivalent costing exactly half of that to certify, why did they waste their moneywhen most 12-year-olds will still get to see the higher-rated edition either due tovideo rental shops doing what they shouldn’t and allowing them to rent it, or gettingtheir parents/elder siblings to do it for them. That extra money could have been puttowards an anamorphic print…
However, the most ‘offensive’ moment comes when Clown is seen eating a piece of pizzatopped with grubs. Bleah! On the other hand, there are plenty of one-liners from thismostly-annoying creature, including one that Sheen is sure to recognise :
This title is one of the second batch of DVD releases from Entertainment in Video, butstill it suffers the same fate that some of their other titles do, namelyI Know What You Did Last Summer,Evitaand Seven, inthat while bring presented in their original widescreen ratio, Spawn being 1.85:1, none ofthem are anamorphically-enhanced, so even though the encoding is artifact-free, the finalimage could have looked a lot better.
I was unable to determine the average bitrate for the film as the DVD Title which beginswith the film actually lasts a bizarre 13 hours and five minutes, anything coming afterthe film being a blank, so the bitrate calculation is way out of line. For the film itselfthough, it looks close to 6Mb/s, looking at the graph. As for the extras, many of thesemeasure a superb 9.16Mb/s.
The sound also shares a problem with the other titles in that while being filmedwith a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, it’s merely represented in DD2.0 whichtranslates to Dolby Surround or ProLogic given the particular amplifier in use.However, I have to ask why, since Surround/Prologic-only is nothing but a backwardstep.
Leading Hell’s army ?D’oh! just wasn’t the word for it.
Extras : Chapters & Trailer :There are 24 chapters spread over 95 minutes which is fine and this amount mirrorsthe Region 1 release. The original theatrical trailer is also included. Languages & Subtitles :Just one language for this disc – English in Dolby Surround – and with subtitlesin the same language. Other extras :
- Commentary track : This time, comments come not just from the directorMark A.Z. Dippe, but also Spawn creator Todd McFarlane, producerClint Goldman and visual-effects supervisor Steve ‘Spaz’ Williams.
- Music video : Filter and the Crystal Method – Can’t You Trip LikeI Do ?
- Todd McFarlane – Chapter and Verse : a 20-minute interview with the creatordoing all the talking. It gives you an important insight into the character, butMcFarlane does tend to ramble on a bit.
- The Making of Spawn : An interesting 22-minute documentary with chat fromthe cast and crew and a look about how the special effects were created.
What’s missing ? The Region 1 DVD also contains Scene-to-storyboard comparisonsand Original Todd McFarlane sketches. Menu :
The menu is static and silent with the same drawing of Spawn on each page.
On inserting the disc, you see the copyright info and the Entertainment In Videologo and then the film begins without accessing the main menu first. If you go tothe menu, clicking on “Play Movie” brings up the EiV logo and then the film starts.For some reason, the EiV logo shimmers like crazy and gives you a headache if you lookat it for its full duration.
…and the mother-in-law came too.So, Spawn: Special Edition becomes a Not-So-Special Edition due to itsfailings. Given that the region 1 release contains more extras, an anamorphic transferand a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, can the UK DVD be recommended ? Not really, unlessyou never plan to upgrade your sound system from ProLogic, or your television set to awidescreen model, or your DVD player to a multi-region machine.
As for the film, it’s a fine enough watch in that it rarely gets boring, butit’s not something I’d want to sit through again. Fans of the comic and CGIanimation will want to go back to it, but if they’ve any sense they’ll get theanamorphic release.
Sorry, EiV, but with a little more effort all the missed opportunities could have beenmet.
FILM : **½PICTURE QUALITY : ****SOUND QUALITY: ****EXTRAS: ****——————————-OVERALL: ***½
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.