Spawn (1998)

Wow. Okay, so I have never seen Batman & Robin. After this it automatically went into my "Must Watch" list. I have to know. It is generally considered the worst superhero film of all time. And that cannot be true. I cannot imagine it possibly being worse than this.

In fairness to how bad the film is (and it's atrocious) one good thing about its badness is that none of it really angered me. I was more sad and embarrassed than anything. I have found that terrible comic book projects like Titans and Riverdale unleash rage in me. This movie is too worthless to bother getting upset over.

First of all, I was shocked Industrial Lights And Magic did the effects. Maybe I shouldn't be, but these effects are absolute dreck. They wouldn't pass muster on SyFy Channel ten years ago. Sharknadoes are more convincing. It was made during computer visual effects' infancy, so no wonder it looks bad. The thing is, a LOT of visual effects projects were very selective of when to use CGI back then because it DID used to look bad. It's why Star Trek used models and matte paintings for so long. Every visual effect in the movie is CGI. And it looks absolutely terrible and beyond dated.

I remember seeing Michael Jai White on Arrow as Bronze Tiger and thinking, "This guy's great! He deserved a huge movie career instead of slumming as a guest cast member on The CW." This movie is why it never happened. I'm not going to say he's bad in it. But the truth is if he were great HERE, the movie would have been easier to take. It's not entirely his fault because it was very early in his career, and this was his big break. But Todd McFarlane did his career no favors. It's also totally on-brand for a jerk like McFarlane to give the actor playing one of the first black onscreen superheroes second billing to John Leguizamo, who is probably at his career low point here as the Clown. And yes, I know he was Luigi is that awful Super Mario Bros. movie. I'm still betting that was less embarrassing in hindsight.

Speaking of Todd McFarlane, I think I am about to simply declare the franchise a dud. I didn't like the animated series at ALL when I saw it a few years ago, and even though the tone is more measured here, the problem is the premise is just terrible. It makes no sense. Not even as a mystery premise. There is no mystery to be had. It's just random bad crap happening under the guise of hellish apocalyptic battles. There's no rhyme or reason to the Clown's plans or actions. His foolish and unnecessarily cruel behavior is one of the biggest obstacles to his goals, so while the movie is playing it like Leguizamo is being a bastard, in reality, he's being an idiot. And since he's the Big Bad, that's annoying. He's also played for laughs, but there's nothing funny about him or his fart jokes. He's annoying.

I mention I didn't like the cartoon TV show. This movie is better than it in one big way. On the TV show it was basically nothing happening for three seasons, while events occurred onscreen at a snail's pace. And it was STILL somehow unresolved after three seasons, despite nothing occurring. I will give the movie credit for having a beginning, middle, and end. But really, is that really something that deserves praise? Isn't that literally the least a project can do?

Todd McFarlane is SUCH an obnoxious tool in real life. Far be it from me to criticize the guy's creative process, but the premise is just flawed from the ground up and doesn't work. Yeah, he's a great artist. As a writer he is an absolute talentless hack. Him preening and showboating in every live-action interview and segment I've seen him in would probably not be as obnoxious and intolerable as it is if he could spin a decent story. You want to be the preening bad boy of comics? Maybe write something that holds up and doesn't totally suck. As such, he's an insufferable loser. I can't see how he has any fans at all. He is the worst.

If Martin Sheen also doesn't consider this his career low point, I don't want to see the project that he does.

The narration of the film, and jump cuts with the flashbacks, and CGI Hell effects made the actual story hard to follow. I sort of got what was going on because I'd seen the cartoon, but this must have been incomprehensible to people going into this fresh. Ironically, the movie was probably so confusing to begin with that it seems likely to me the film immediately starting off with insane sounding exposition was probably a studio note. The sad thing is, the movie is so bad I can't even definitely say that was a bad note. It might have been even worse without it.

Normally something that bad would get a longer review, and I'd go in-depth about the flaws of the Clown's plan and why it would never work. I just don't care enough about this to do that. And that's actually a good point and something I'll give the movie credit for. I was annoyed rather than angry. Which is sort of refreshing in seeing a terrible film. 0.