Product Details

• Actors: Martin Sheen
• Format: Widescreen
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (163 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001P1ZB1G
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #497,230 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Mike Tyson vs. the Devil... DING DING!, April 6, 2002

By 

Danny "Alan Smithee" (South Philly) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spawn - The Director's Cut (New Line Platinum Series) (DVD)

Films of this sort require you to take an enormous amount of disbelief, but even when knowing this, it's still an ugly and pretty bad movie. When I first saw the trailer for "Spawn," my mouth dropped in sheer joy. It was released in the summer of '97, which is when I had just begun reading the Spawn comic books, and I really couldn't wait to see it. Roger Ebert gave it three and a half stars, and I expected some sort of revisit to Batman's glory days...

But, oh, man. What a disappointment. For the first five minutes of the film, I was very much hooked. It opens with a merciless assasination, and goes headfirst into probably the best opening credits sequence I've ever seen in my life. But after that, it goes totally downhill. The special effects are great, but the script is cartoonish, and the acting is remarkably bad. Michael Jai White (who played the title role in HBO's Tyson) is okay as Spawn, but his overracting and bad delivery of emotion get to be rather tiresome. John Leguizamo is Clown, the Devil's cronie, a character so campy and corny, it made me want to laugh out loud. And then there's Martin Sheen, who plays an unbelievably evil mortal bent on world domination (original, huh?). His performance is nothing spectacular, either.

But despite bad acting, I think most of the fault should fall on director Mark Dippe. New Line should have hired someone else for this movie, like Tim Burton or Alex Proyas, because aside from doing special effects, this guy doesn't know what the hell he's doing. Some of the camera angles just make you scratch your head and wonder, "Why?"

I give "Spawn" two stars for the special effects and the opening credits sequence. Pretty sad, huh? Yeah, well, if you're about to see it for the first time, you'll agree with me.

P.S. -- Spawn's cape was awesome.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars See only the R-Rated Version., May 5, 2001

By 

Sci-fi Geek (Socorro, New Mexico USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spawn - The Director's Cut (New Line Platinum Series) (DVD)

in 1997, me and my mom saw this in the theaters and we both liked it. i've always been fascinated with both TV Show and Comic Books ( a Spawn Fanatic). the story deals with Al Simmonds ( Michael Jai White) who gets murdered by his scum bag boss " Jason Wynn" ( Martin Sheen) and is sent to hell, makes a deal with the evil lord of Darkness " Malbolgia" and becomes a Shapeshifting avenger named " Spawn" so that he can see his wife again. The DVD Director's cut is the only one worth watching instead of the lousy PG-13 Version that they had dumbed down, i know that The Clown ( John Leguizomo) can be annoying but you can just forgive that and just see this movie with a different if interesting twist to the superhero stuff and some spectacular visual effects.

21 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Never Trust a Fat Clown, October 19, 2002

By 

Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Spawn - The Director's Cut (New Line Platinum Series) (DVD)

Todd McFarlane began the 'Spawn' comic series in 1992. The series went on to set records for comic sales. My own personal knowledge of 'Spawn' comes from the large number of imaginative action figures that appear on many toy and comic store shelves. I have bought and set up several, and I decided to see the film to get some insight into the story behind the figures.

The film starts like a buzz saw. You are dumped right into the life of secret agent/assassin Al Simmons (Michael Jai White) as he destroys a planeload of people, realizes what he had done, and tries to leave the agency for whom he worked. Needless to say, his evil boss Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen) has no intention of letting him go. Wynn tricks Simmons into one 'last' assignment. It's a setup, and Simmons is toasted for real.

Suddenly (everything is sudden in this film) it is five years later. Simmons pops back into existence, looking like the aftermath of a nuclear explosion, with a severe memory shortage. A really gross clown (John Leguizamo) keeps trying to be his buddy, his best friend has married his girlfriend, and the only thing that remembers him is his dog - Spaz (I don't know who played the dog). This is a situation that can only get worse, and sure enough, that's what it does.

The basic plot turns on Simmons' (now called Spawn) moral progress. Hell has been tempting souls all over the world in order to create an army of badness. Now they want Spawn to be the general of that army and lead the last apocalyptic attack on heaven. In order to qualify, that have to play on Spawn's anger and thirst for vengeance until he does something so bad that he loses all his humanity. Of course, this involves killing most of the people in the world. Cogliostro (Nicol Williamson) plays the good guy, trying to help Spawn keep his humanity.

My immediate problem with 'Spawn' was that it was not 'Blade.' It took me the first 15 minutes of the film to get over that. I think this was really a matter of seeing 'Blade' just before viewing 'Spawn.' Once I was able to get into the movie a bit, I found that my original reaction was overkill. Even so, most of the script is people morphing into things that kill and then smashing other people into smithereens. Yes, there is a plot, but its primary purpose is to provide an excuse for a steady procession of outrageous (but bloodless) violence. Exactly how it managed to hold on to a PG-13 rating is beyond me. 'Blade' had an element of style that is simply lacking in 'Spawn.'

The cast consists of many skilled and experienced players (Martin Sheen's film credits are probably longer than the script). Unfortunately, the pace is so intense that the only character you get to know well is that godforsaken clown, and you will really wish that you hadn't. Most of the other characters are limited to parts that are heavily typecast. Despite this, 'Spawn' is almost a very good film. Many of the special effects are great, and there certainly isn't anything wrong with a lot of fast-paced action. However, the story never completely gripped me, and the film work is a bit too claustrophobic. Still, it's worth seeing if you get a chance.