Spawn (1997) and Death Becomes Her (1992)

If you know anything at all about the two movies in the title, you might be wondering why I decided to review them together. The simple answer is that I saw both of them yesterday and realized I couldn't find much to say about either, so I thought I might as well be dismissively cursory about them both and get this finished before work so I wouldn't be spending my afternoon slaving over a hot PC.

Spawn, therefore, is an adaptation of the Todd McFarlane comic books; it tells the story of a top-flight mercenary assassinated by his boss in order to lead the armies of Hell. Spawn has horribly burned skin, but makes up for it with kickass armour and a remarkable sense of morality for someone who formerly killed for pay. Spawn also has a very, very cute dog.

Death Becomes Her, on the other hand, represents Robert Zemeckis' attempt to capture the glory and box office revenue of the Back to the Future trilogy. It stars Bruce Willis as a nerdy cosmetic surgeon, and Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn as the women who fight over him. Both the Streep and Hawn characters are desperate to maintain their youth, to the extent that they're prepared to drink an immortality potion that allows them to regain their youthful looks unless, say, they're horribly injured in an accident. Or an "accident".

The good

Spawn first: Spawn has a very, very cute dog.

Death Becomes Her: As the witch in charge of the immortality potion, Isabella Rossellini looks very, very good in very, very few clothes.

The bad

How was I bored by thee, Spawn? Let me count the ways. Or, y'know, let me not, because that would take too long. The film was incoherent, adolescent dreck specifically designed to cater to the sort of kids who cheer on the kids who go on gun rampages in America's schools every year or so. I'm not mentioning the acting because there wasn't a lot of it going on, except for John Leguizamo's satanic clown, who irritated me even more than the young lovers from Rock of Ages. I'm having trouble writing more than this, because the rest of the film was just that forgettable.

Death Becomes Her, on the other hand, represents a little more of a wasted opportunity - there were interesting themes, and a great cast who were obviously committed enough to the project to be prepared to abandon their dignity. In the end, though, any wider observations on human vanity and shallowness were abandoned in favour of a gleeful focus on having awful things happen to the two equally awful female protagonists. The movie hates everyone, but damned if it doesn't hate women most especially. Oh, and pro tip? If you have to write a scene that features an obese person overeating (because what else do obese people do?), you should probably be aware that we don't miss our mouths quite that much. That's, ah, kind of the reason we're obese.

The verdict

Probably shouldn't have done such a rush job on these; don't care. Normal service will resume on Saturday, when I'll hopefully be tackling something a bit less shit.