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Dom Robinson reviews

Spawn: Director's Cut

Born in darkness.
Sword to justice.

Distributed by

Entertainment In Video

Spawn: Director's Cut is the big-screen adaptation of Todd McFarlane's animated reluctant hero. Born as Al 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 the ensuing explosion. Five years later he resurfaces scarred for life and bent on revenge for what Wynn did to him.

However, killing Wynn won't be quite that easy. Like most movie villains, he has a plan for world domination which involves making threats and killing anyone who gets in his way. He has developed the Heat-16 virus bomb, a device powerful enough to kill the entire population of Earth and he's not afraid to use it. In fact, Wynn proclaims :

"It makes the Ebola virus look like a skin rash !"

Another device is also in use - one that is attached to his heart inside his body, such that if his heart stops, the virus is released and everybody dies - hence he cannot be killed.

Hence, Al will have his work cut out as Spawn because after being sent to Hell when death comes calling, he must agree to lead Hell's army and kill Wynn just to see his beloved Wanda again. Just to make his job harder is Hell's representative, Clown (a completely unrecognisable John Leguizamo), who tries to goad Spawn into committing 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 acts as his mentor and helps him as best as he can. Finally, D.B. Sweeney, lends support 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 be the name and nickname, respectively, of two of the crew working on the film. Coincidence or intention ?

movie pic

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-certificate cinema release. When it reached video, the BBFC agreed to two versions coming out to rent - the same version in pan-and-scan as well as a 15-cert Director's Cut, also in pan-and-scan, which added approximately a minute to the running time. Both versions were also available to buy six months later, with a widescreen version being released for the director's cut.

The question I want to ask is, since EiV would have to pay the full whack to the BBFC for the 12-cert rental video and the 15-cert pan-and-scan version, the widescreen equivalent costing exactly half of that to certify, why did they waste their money when most 12-year-olds will still get to see the higher-rated edition either due to video rental shops doing what they shouldn't and allowing them to rent it, or getting their parents/elder siblings to do it for them. That extra money could have been put towards an anamorphic print...

However, the most 'offensive' moment comes when Clown is seen eating a piece of pizza topped with grubs. Bleah! On the other hand, there are plenty of one-liners from this mostly-annoying creature, including one that Sheen is sure to recognise :

"I love the smell of burning asphalt in the morning."

This title is one of the second batch of DVD releases from Entertainment in Video, but still it suffers the same fate that some of their other titles do, namely I Know What You Did Last Summer, Evita and Seven, in that while bring presented in their original widescreen ratio, Spawn being 1.85:1, none of them are anamorphically-enhanced, so even though the encoding is artifact-free, the final image could have looked a lot better.

I was unable to determine the average bitrate for the film as the DVD Title which begins with the film actually lasts a bizarre 13 hours and five minutes, anything coming after the film being a blank, so the bitrate calculation is way out of line. For the film itself though, it looks close to 6Mb/s, looking at the graph. As for the extras, many of these measure a superb 9.16Mb/s.

The sound also shares a problem with the other titles in that while being filmed with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, it's merely represented in DD2.0 which translates 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 backward step.

movie pic

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 mirrors the Region 1 release. The original theatrical trailer is also included.

Languages & Subtitles :

Just one language for this disc - English in Dolby Surround - and with subtitles in the same language.

Other extras :

What's missing ? The Region 1 DVD also contains Scene-to-storyboard comparisons and 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 Video logo and then the film begins without accessing the main menu first. If you go to the 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 look at it for its full duration.

movie pic

...and the mother-in-law came too.

So, Spawn: Special Edition becomes a Not-So-Special Edition due to its failings. Given that the region 1 release contains more extras, an anamorphic transfer and a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, can the UK DVD be recommended ? Not really, unless you never plan to upgrade your sound system from ProLogic, or your television set to a widescreen 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, but it's not something I'd want to sit through again. Fans of the comic and CGI animation will want to go back to it, but if they've any sense they'll get the anamorphic release.

Sorry, EiV, but with a little more effort all the missed opportunities could have been met. 

FILM	 		: **½
PICTURE QUALITY 	: ****
SOUND QUALITY		: ****
EXTRAS			: ****
-------------------------------
OVERALL			: ***½

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.

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