Spawn

Spawn is based on one of the most popular comics in America (and comics are hot property for turning in to movies these days). But do stunning special effects, an industrial soundtrack and a creator with complete control make a good movie?

On paper, Spawn sounds great (on paper it is - the best issues have good art and better stories). Take a government agent (Michael Jae White as Al Simmons, an operative for the super-secret A-6 agency) - a trained killer fighting for the forces of democracy but tormented by the wanton destruction and innocent lives this seems to demand. Give him a loyal sidekick and a beautiful yet supportive wife (Theresa Randle) and have his boss (Charlie Sheen) betray him. Sheen’s Jason Wynn has made a pact with the devil to cook up biological weapons to kick off Armageddon and now they want Simmons too - the perfect psychopath to lead Hell’s Army.

Sheen plays Wynn with a combination of bluster and panache that seems occasionally flat and flabby compared to the Clown - John Leguizamo with plenty of padding and a blue face as the devil’s wisecracking, maggot-eating representative on earth - and Priest, the impressively equipped female agent who strides around menacingly in PVC pants. Killing Simmons off and then offering him the chance to see his wife again in return for leading Hell’s Army should set the scene for conflict, temptation and some major fire fights - especially when Simmons discovers that Wynn set him up, but he can’t kill him without setting off bombs primed to release the biological weapons all around the world.

Cue the special effects that took 21 different companies and cost nearly as much as the film’s initial shoot. Apart from the fact that Hell looks just like a level from Quake, they’re generally impressive, particularly the supernatural power of the Spawn suit; “Your armour has trillions of neural connections. It is a living extension of your own instincts, instantly translating your thoughts into physical reality.” Spikes, chains, blades and armoured carapaces spring into being - Simmons obviously has a wicked mind. But when the suit isn’t biting people in the leg or morphing in to a spiky motorbike cover, it’s just another man in a rubber suit - and a bad rubber suit at that.

Worse still, all this never quite gels and the effects that should leave you gasping are lost in the mix. Leguizamo leers and jokes at breakneck speed in a passable Michael Keaton impersonation that’s too often drowned out by the intrusive soundtrack. And for a tormented moralist with the fate of the human race in his hands, Simmons seems just a little too comfortable. Every town should have a huge neglected gothic cathedral for its superheroes to bum around on top of, looking moody and tormented. Unfortunately, while the cathedral looks very moody, for most of the movie Simmons just looks confused and bad tempered. Thanks heavens the voice-over tells us this is due to the pain of coming back from the dead or we might have thought it was bad acting.

The fight scenes are fast and furious but the pace of the film is all wrong, lurching from fights and chases to explanations to unsubtle happy-family scenes with wide-eyed children and dogs to remind us that all this violence isn’t just for the hell of it (so to speak). The film doesn’t flow, the actors don’t set you on fire and the whole thing is just too true to its comic book roots. Spawn could have done with a more experienced director - perhaps James Cameron, who gets a tip of the hat in the credits (along with Timothy Leary). And perhaps it would have been a better film without quite so much input from Todd McFarlane (who makes the obligatory cameo appearance as one of the street bums who shelter Simmons) - there are just too many shots that would make great frames in the comic.

Ultimately Spawn’s disappointing, not least because it’s good enough to have been much better. Although it’s decidedly silly and quite good fun, it ends up as a somewhat incoherent movie with the feel of a comic book - just not as slick or subtle. And it’s got sequel written all over it

Secret agents, pacts with the devil and major special effects, this film is True Lies meets Batman in a head on collision with The Crow - unfortunately Spawn comes off worst in the collision