Home

From the producers of Blade and The Crow comes Spawn, a dark, action-packed supernatural thriller that redefined the comic book movie with cutting-edge visual effects and a haunting origin story of vengeance, damnation, and redemption. Al Simmons (Michael Jai White) is a top-tier Black Ops agent, ruthlessly efficient and fiercely loyal–until he’s doublecrossed and executed by his commanding officer, Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen). But Simmons is resurrected by the devil Malebolgia and becomes Spawn, a demonic antihero with terrifying powers. Caught between Earth and the Underworld, Spawn is determined to exact bloody revenge on Wynn, and must choose to serve his new infernal masters or fight for the salvation of his immortal soul. Based on Todd McFarlane’s groundbreaking comic, Spawn is a visually explosive cult classic that blends horror, action, and gothic fantasy, available for the first time in a fiery new 4K restoration that breathes new life into Hell’s most iconic warrior.

What We Thought:

For almost 30 years I’ve wanted to love the Spawn movie. I think it has a fantastic soundtrack and I thought Michael Jai White was the perfect Al Simmons/Spawn. The character has so much to it that the film could have easily been up there with beloved early comic movies like Blade and The Crow. The comics have the violence and tone of other characters that would have monster film followings like Wolverine and Deadpool. Unfortunately the movie just wasn’t that good and holds up even worse.

Watching the 4K of Spawn you realize how 1990s it really feels. Usually that’s a great thing to me, but not with visual effects. That’s the biggest issue with the film, then and now, it looks dated. Released in 1997, it very much comes across as a movie that came out before The Matrix. Just two years later The Matrix changed what is acceptable and unacceptable in special effects and Spawn (even then) was visually unacceptable. It looks like a 1990s personal computer video game and not a groundbreaking visual flick. The visual effects for Malebolgia are laughably bad as are a lot of Spawn’s effects.

It’s a shame too because White embraced the role and did the best he could. Martin Sheen feels a bit out of place and Melinda Clarke did nothing to make Priest more than one-dimensional, but White was a good Simmons. If the film had better effects we’d look back at White like we do with Wesley Snipes as Blade. White is still built like a comic book character and has always been a top-notch action performer and he deserved much better than this.

I hadn’t seen the film in a few years and the new 4K of Spawn reminded me of what we got instead of what we could have gotten. Spawn should be on the list of comic book movies that got us to where we are today like Blade, The Crow and X-Men, but the visuals hurt it to this day. The 4K looks good and sounds even better and reminded me of the fantastic soundtrack it has. It’s also jampacked with bonus features including the Director’s Cut and Theatrical Cut plus multiple new interviews and more. Todd MacFarlane has been trying to get a reboot off the ground for years, but as of right now this is still the only Spawn film we’ve gotten. It’s fun in a cult way, but the character and Michael Jai White deserved so much better.

Bonus Features:

  • 4K ULTRA HD LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
  • 4K restorations of both the Director’s Cut and Theatrical Cut of the film from the original camera negatives by Arrow Films
  • Reversible sleeve featuring two original artwork options
  • Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by John Torrani
  • Double-sided foldout poster featuring two original artwork options
  • DISC 1 – DIRECTOR’S CUT
  • 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
  • Original DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround audio and lossless stereo audio options
  • Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • Brand new audio commentary with comic book expert and podcast host Dave Baxter
  • Audio commentary with Todd McFarlane, Mark A.Z. Dippé, Clint Goldman, and Steve Williams (1998)
  • Hell’s Perfect Son, a brand new interview with actor Michael Jai White
  • Spawn Support, a brand new interview with actors Melinda Clarke and D.B. Sweeney
  • The Devil’s in the Details, a brand new interview with animatronic creature and special makeup effects artists Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero
  • The Devil’s Music, a brand new interview with music supervisor Happy Walters
  • Order Out of Chaos, a brand new interview with editor Michael Knue
  • Todd McFarlane: Chapter & Verse, an archival featurette from 1998 in which Spawn creator Todd McFarlane reflects on how the film adaptation stacks up against his original comic book vision
  • The Making of Spawn, archival behind-the-scenes featurette
  • Preview: Todd McFarlane’s Spawn – The Animated Movie
  • Theatrical trailer
  • Scene-to-storyboard comparisons
  • Original Todd McFarlane sketches
  • Spawn concept and sketch gallery
  • DISC 2 – THEATRICAL CUT
  • 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
  • Original DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround audio and lossless stereo audio options
  • Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

Leave a comment