Those who get their kicks from comic books will need no introduction to Spawn, the character created by Todd McFarlane five years ago which has already spawned a pop-cult empire.
This expensive, big-screen adaptation of Spawn (courtesy of New Line, the studio which produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ) has been long-awaited in some quarters: not, however, by those who have suffered through other attempts to bring comic books to life - think Tank Girl, Darkman, or even The Crow 2.
Spawn takes much of its inspiration from The Crow, mixing it with the nihilistic, doomed sentiments of Batman's re-emergence in The Dark Knight Returns. The plot of Spawn, as directed by Mark Dippe, is familiar to fans of the Brandon Lee vehicle - a murdered hero comes back to inhabit a world of the quasi-dead in order to wreak revenge.
It does not bear up to much scrutiny. The hero, played lifelessly by Michael Jai White, is Al Simmons, an assassin killed by own agency who sells his soul to the devil to see his wife again (not that the devil, a dog, shows too much interest in Spawn fulfilling his end of the bargain).
Spawn is now apparently semi-dead, his body melted into a mass of charred veins and muscle tissue with spiky weapons bursting from his skin. He becomes involved in a war between heaven and hell, and uses his bio-armour to battle his old boss (Martin Sheen) and an obese demon in clown make-up (John Leguizamo) who are conspiring against each other to wipe out the human race and help the devil's cause.
But Spawn is not about plot; this movie is all imagery, its glitzy, psychedelic, cosmic light tunnels mixed with moments of brooding angst are designed to target adolescent self-loathing as a paying audience. It is every comic book you have ever known rolled into one - Spider-Man meets Batman meets Darkman, The Crow, The Phantom of the Opera and every twisted outcast of that genre.
