“We come to this place… for magic. We come to [The 90-Minute Movie] to laugh, to cry, to care. Because we need that, all of us, that indescribable feeling we get when the lights begin to dim... and we go somewhere knowing we won’t be there all day.” - Nicole Kidman (sort of)
It’s Leguizamo John-uary! If you missed last week’s post on To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar do yourself a favor and go back and give it a read. We’ve only got 4 weeks to celebrate one of Hollywood’s most prolific actors, so you better indulge where you can. Leguizamo has played some truly special villains and anti-heroes in his day (Benny Blanco, Tybalt) but none of them have been as controversial, questionable, strange, or grotesque as the Clown (aka Violater) in 1997’s Spawn. I realize the whiplash between Chi Chi Rodriguez and Clown is intense but… at least we’ll do it together.
Spawn is infamous in the world of comic book movies. This is a world in which I sort of dabble but I had never laid eyes on this visually abusive film (I likened it to a Microsoft screensaver in my Letterboxd review) until last week. Produced by Spawn’s original creator and illustrator, Todd McFarlane, it did relatively well in the box office despite being hated by critics.
Like a lot of superhero movies, it is an origin story explaining how former Marine and present-day assassin Al Simmons (Michael Jai White) is sent to hell but comes back to earth as a “hellspawn” in a very serious deal with the Devil. Al will lead the devil’s army in exchange for seeing his wife again (that’s love?) After being shot out of hell and going by the name Spawn, Al is “guided” by the Clown (Leguizamo) to commit enough crimes against humanity to officially lead the army. Spawn, however, has a crisis of conscience. And with the help of Cogliostro (Nicol Williamson), another hellspawn turned “good”, he learns to harness his powers to take down the man who sent him to Hell - Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen) - and to stick it to the Devil himself.
In the comic books, there’s a good amount of detail to Spawn’s origin story but the movie fails to even do this basic task. Teach us who he is so we connect with him or teach us what is at stake. It sounds weird to say but the end-of-the-world is just about as lame as stakes can get. It seems the makers forgot that the movie could be an opportunity to gain more Spawn fans and instead cut out important world-building in service of-- I’m not sure. Existing fans? A producer’s whim? Character introduction is something that Marvel did exceptionally well and this is what helped them build their empire. The special effects of Spawn are brutal and while people may want to argue that it was 1997 and early days for CGI, I’ll be the jerk that reminds you that Jurassic Park was four years old at this point. The rendering of hell is especially hard on the eyes:
Whereas other elements like his cape are slightly better:
I’m not a fan of CGI normally, but this was almost impossible to watch.
But enough about the screensaver, let’s talk about the performances. What’s striking and incredibly important to remember about Spawn is that he is a Black superhero and in Spawn, Michael Jai White became the first Black American to play a major comic book hero on film. And so despite the absolute shortcomings of the movie, it’s hard to deride something so important to the canon of superhero stories, especially one that likely paved the way for Blade (starring Wesley Snipes) a year later. And despite Martin Sheen’s “contribution” (which is likely one of his worst performances), that majority of screen time is given to White and Leguizamo who is Latinx. This is important as the voices of Black and Latinx creators in the comic book space have long been ignored. (If you want to learn more about this I suggest this 10-minute Tongal video and this hour-long piece from the Library of Congress.) It’s worth noting that Marvel wouldn’t have a person of color in a leading hero role until 2017’s Black Panther - twenty years later.
Michal Jai White produces a neutral performance for me. I was neither offended or thrilled. Sheen was terrible. And Leguizamo well… I love this performance. Which is an extremely controversial statement out here on the internet and maybe I should be afraid of even suggesting it, but hear me out! He completely disappears into the character of Clown. And now I don’t mean into the intense makeup and prosthetics. He truly embodies this disgusting, annoying, evil creature with his heart and soul. You can just feel his work ethic emanating through the grease paint. Leguizamo has said that Clown is his favorite villain he has ever had the opportunity to portray. In the article it says that Leguizamo appreciated the level of difficulty it took to play Clown and the relationship he built with creator McFarlane. A relationship that led to a partnership decades later on Lequizamo’s own comic book.
If you Google Leguizamo’s performance in Spawn it won’t take you long to find negativity about it. For a lot of people, Clown was too much. Too goofy, too disgusting, too stupid, too vile, too juvenile. And maybe these are people that read the comic books and understand the character of a deeper level than I ever will… but I appreciate someone going so fucking hard into a character and losing a little bit of control. That takes guts. And I am also going to appreciate guts over a bland performance.
I’d only recommend Spawn to those who are trying to get into the superhero genre, because it does serve as an excellent entry and reference point to the movies that will come after. But if you’re just a person looking for a good action movie — there are plenty of others out there for you.
Gotta love how they couldn't even be bothered to animate Malebolgia's mouth when he speaks. It just hangs open like a dog under the kitchen counter waiting for dinner prep run-off.