Rating: 2/5
The battle between Heaven and Hell has waged eternal, their armies fueled by souls harvested on Earth. The devil, Malebolgia, has sent a lieutenant to Earth to recruit men to turn the world into a place of death in exchange for wealth and power — a place that provides enough souls to complete his army and allow Armageddon to begin. All the Dark Lord needs now is a great soldier, someone who can lead his hordes to the gates of Heaven and burn them down.
Al Simmons, a CIA operative, shoots up the air traffic control tower of a military air base in Hong Kong. When everyone is dead, he unpacks a cute little rocket launcher and dons some special goggles to survey the landing field and find his targets. When he positively identifies the four, he launches his rocket, which breaks out into four mini-rockets. But it doesn’t matter, because the entire plane blows up so everyone else dies along with the four targets. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
Simmons tries to quit, but Wynn won’t let him until he completes one last mission — infiltrate a biochemical weapons plant in North Korea. When Simmons gets there, Wynn and an assassin named Priest are waiting for him. Priest then douses Simmons with fuel. Wynn tosses his cigarette at Simmons, lighting him on fire. “See you in Hell,” says Wynn before throwing him a salute.
Simmons wakes up, covered in burn scars. He doesn’t know it, but five years have passed. Malebolgia kept him imprisoned in hell before offering him a deal — he could return to Earth if he became the outstanding soldier who would lead Hell’s army in Armageddon. I’m unsure why he must forget that, but here we are.
To call this movie “directed” would be an overstatement. These poor actors are kind of doing whatever, and no one comes out looking good. Michael Jai White’s voice gets more gruff as the movie progresses. By twenty minutes in, I can barely understand him. John Leguizamo’s farting clown is certainly on screen.
That’s what the studio gets for hiring a first-time director for this movie.
The screenplay requires constant interruptions from a narrator to explain to the audience what is happening. We get hilarious bursts of flames that overwhelm the screen just before.
The special effects are pretty good for 1997. Spawn’s transformations and ridiculous cape are fun.
I always love a squealing guitar in the score to signal something extreme is happening.
The 90s had a difficult time getting over gunfights as the sole means of conveying action.
This movie is cuckoo — sometimes fun, but more often boring.