Comic Book Movies: The Crow

• 1st Apr 2011

The Crow

We’re not going to talk about the fate of Brandon Lee or the effect that may have had on this film being a success. It’s been done to death so we just won’t go into it here. Nor are we going to pinpoint the insertions of doubles, or use of CGI that the film-makers used to fill in the holes in order to complete the film. Now that I have that off my chest…

The first Crow film is highly quoted by fans (I know I can literally read the dialogue out from start to finish as I watch it – as I tend to do when watching it with the right friends). But then I did go and see it five times on its theatrical run within a two week period.  To this day that’s still the most amount of times I’ve ever seen any film on the big screen. I would say that I reserved such treatment at the time for those special films (and the case of, say, Amelie, that is true: three times). The Crow is also one of those such films – but there have been many others that back in my college days were seen on multiple occasions simply to fill a couple of hours in my day.  Hell, I saw Ace Ventura: Pet Detective more than once (three times); Naked Gun 33 ½ (twice); even that horrible Rob Reiner film North (two times).  This of course added to my over-familiarity with film having seen a great mix of brilliant, average and decidedly poor films on more than one occasion – all for the sake of filling lunch breaks, and after studyingand before hitting a student night. To be honest with the privilege of cheap cinema tickets at the time (paying around £3.30 per filme) it was all worth it. But as I have said, The Crow was much more special – hence the amount of times I returned to it.  Each time was of course less of a surprise than the last, but each very much enjoyable

Funboy, T-Bird, Top Dollar, Skank, TinTin – “jolly pirate nicknames” indeed. Not that Eric Draven is in anyway a reference to Raven. Our hero spends much of the middle of the film hunting down the gang, one at a time, that were responsible for his and his fiancé’s murders a year ago. He takes each victim down in a way that’s usually appropriate to their own habits. Tintin is a master at knife work – so naturally is stabbed to death. Funboy is quite the drug fiend, so is overdosed. T-Bird likes to commit arson, so is naturally sent flaming into the afterlife.

There’s plenty of time in between for Draven to catch up with the lost innocent souls of the city, including a wizened and demoted cop, and the young girl who he and his fiancé used to spend time with. This opens up the opportunity for the film to fill in character depth and include flashbacks to surreal and happier times at home and out at play in the fields.

The Crow was the adult’s answer to the comic book action film they were waiting for. It’s art and entertainment in equal value and is worth revisiting just to see how well it stands up in today’s crowd – and see what it managed to do on such a small budget. It makes me cringe all the more when I watch the likes of the Zack Snyders of this world turn into the new and future Michael Bays! Forgetting all about the substance and proving us with nothing but style. The Crow has both

The Crow: City of Angels suffered from trying to imitate the first film too much. It also suffered from a terribly low budget, a director more comfortable with music videos (he was responsible for some of the more popular Cure videos) and a cast that struggled to strike the right tone – and generally just came off as terrible actors.

Many critics liked to poke the bad-acting finger at Iggy Pop in his supporting role as gang leader Curve. Yet it’s actually his boss (Richard Brooks) who puts in the film’s most offensive performance. You can also spot a Pre-Punisher Thomas Jane as one of the villains whacking off in a nudey parlour before meeting his grisly end at the hands of our new hero, Ashe Corven (Vincent Perez).

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We’re not going to talk about the fate of Brandon Lee or the effect that may have had on this film being a success. It’s been done to death so we just won’t go into it here. Nor are we going to pinpoint the insertions of doubles, or use of CGI that the film-makers used to fill in the holes in order to complete the film. Now that I have that off my chest…

The first Crow film is highly quoted by fans (I know I can literally read the dialogue out from start to finish as I watch it – as I tend to do when watching it with the right friends). But then I did go and see it five times on its theatrical run within a two week period.  To this day that’s still the most amount of times I’ve ever seen any film on the big screen. I would say that I reserved such treatment at the time for those special films (and the case of, say, Amelie, that is true: three times). The Crow is also one of those such films – but there have been many others that back in my college days were seen on multiple occasions simply to fill a couple of hours in my day.  Hell, I saw Ace Ventura: Pet Detective more than once (three times); Naked Gun 33 ½ (twice); even that horrible Rob Reiner film North (two times).  This of course added to my over-familiarity with film having seen a great mix of brilliant, average and decidedly poor films on more than one occasion – all for the sake of filling lunch breaks, and after studyingand before hitting a student night. To be honest with the privilege of cheap cinema tickets at the time (paying around £3.30 per filme) it was all worth it. But as I have said, The Crow was much more special – hence the amount of times I returned to it.  Each time was of course less of a surprise than the last, but each very much enjoyable.

The Crow packed a visual punch and an engaging story and marked a new director for me to follow (who I have to this day – and yet only his follow up film Dark City seems to have done any justice (sorry I, Robot, and screw you Following). The film obviously hit me at the right age – it may have also have been the first 18 rated film I saw at the theatre. But I have to say that even to this day I find very few flaws in The Crow. The music is still a combination of impactful modern industrial rock (which has been imitated lazily by many films since) and the score by Graeme Revell is quite haunting.

The eye symbolism – perhaps lifted from Blade Runner – is a key element in the script. We constantly get references to it, both visually and in dialogue. Whether it’s the close up of eyeballs or the ideas spawned from talking about vision. It is a motif that works well and carries through to the climax of the film. In fact The Crow is full of plenty of other symbolism as well – the other of note is the religious aspects that are again referred to in the visuals as well as in the dialogue (be it a crucified pose in his mortal death, or a tasteless Jesus Christ joke he tells one victim).

I’ve never read, nor much care to read, the original source material. They often say the book is better than the film for any adaptation, but why disturb the harmony of a near perfect experience at the behest of popular opinion? I understand the book is different in many aspects – but here is a film that’s dark in its sense of humour, yet colourful in the characters it contains.

Funboy, T-Bird, Top Dollar, Skank, TinTin – “jolly pirate nicknames” indeed. Not that Eric Draven is in anyway a reference to Raven. Our hero spends much of the middle of the film hunting down the gang, one at a time, that were responsible for his and his fiancé’s murders a year ago. He takes each victim down in a way that’s usually appropriate to their own habits. Tintin is a master at knife work – so naturally is stabbed to death. Funboy is quite the drug fiend, so is overdosed. T-Bird likes to commit arson, so is naturally sent flaming into the afterlife.

There’s plenty of time in between for Draven to catch up with the lost innocent souls of the city, including a wizened and demoted cop, and the young girl who he and his fiancé used to spend time with. This opens up the opportunity for the film to fill in character depth and include flashbacks to surreal and happier times at home and out at play in the fields.

The Crow was the adult’s answer to the comic book action film they were waiting for. It’s art and entertainment in equal value and is worth revisiting just to see how well it stands up in today’s crowd – and see what it managed to do on such a small budget. It makes me cringe all the more when I watch the likes of the Zack Snyders of this world turn into the new and future Michael Bays! Forgetting all about the substance and proving us with nothing but style. The Crow has both.

The Crow: City of Angels

The Crow: City of Angels suffered from trying to imitate the first film too much. It also suffered from a terribly low budget, a director more comfortable with music videos (he was responsible for some of the more popular Cure videos) and a cast that struggled to strike the right tone – and generally just came off as terrible actors.

Many critics liked to poke the bad-acting finger at Iggy Pop in his supporting role as gang leader Curve. Yet it’s actually his boss (Richard Brooks) who puts in the film’s most offensive performance. You can also spot a Pre-Punisher Thomas Jane as one of the villains whacking off in a nudey parlour before meeting his grisly end at the hands of our new hero, Ashe Corven (Vincent Perez).

Perez could have been more striking if his part had been thickened up and his look wasn’t a complete imitation of Brandon Lee’s – otherwise I had no particular problems with his performance. He does have a few effective moments in the film – but sadly some of the most violent scenes seem to have been trimmed of their dignity. One highlight is the fact that he likes to sing rhymes to a couple of his victims. If this was extended to all of them it could have been a good running theme (as it’s his child he is also seeking vengeance for).

But the collective themes of nursery rhymes and eyes and vision again are lost in the horrible yellow fog that dominates the effects of this film. David S Goyer wrote the screenplay (yes, the one who wrote the Blade trilogy and has had a hand in the new Batman franchise). So one can only imagine what was on paper much surely have been much stronger (then again he did direct Blade: Trinity which was also a big mess).

Mia Kirshner pops up as a grown up Sarah from the first film. Her only purpose here seems to be to help Ashe transform into his avenger role. Beyond that, any attempt to kick up a romance between the two (which could have been worked and been really tragic) is wasted. In fact wasted is the biggest word to use here. There are scenes that want to be dramatic, but are forced out by the director so there’s no resonance. Ashe’s confrontations with the gang are largely just excuses for fun action. His initial kill in the warehouse he blows up is pretty amateurishly handled – and also shows us that that damn Crow symbol is going to appear like magic from now on (unlike in the first film where Eric Draven created them himself). In fact his most interesting one-to-one comes with a minor character (a holy man) who insists that the Day of the Dead celebration is to scare away the ghosts of those who’ve passed over which is met by an intriguing, almost intimidating, look from Ashe.

The film’s climax is probably the biggest let-down of all – just when you expect things to go grand as we watch Ashe climb the exterior of the high-rise, he’s suddenly thrust off and forced into a rather poor showdown at street level involving a take-down of the villain who has taken on the power of the crow.

Then it all ends rather suddenly – the wonky editing suggesting that perhaps something was left on the cutting room floor. And just like that it’s all over and we’re left frowning at the sheer cheek the production had to pull a fast one on us just to make a buck

When you do retrospectives you promise yourself that you’ll try to give equal and ample time to each instalment when covering  franchises – no matter how dismal the returns. It’s something that bothers me whenever reading any book or watching any making of documentary. Many franchises released as special edition have documentaries that seem to spend half the time talking about the first film, maybe half of that time talking about a sequel, and then even less time on the films that followed. It’s annoying as, despite how awful a film can be, you still want to find the justifications for it. But having taken on the task myself now I can see why it’s hard to talk about something that barely has any good points. Perhaps if I had access to the filmmakers I could put them under the spotlight and find a few answers.

What the hell was going on in people’s heads when they made The Crow: Salvation? This is probably the messiest script which makes the least sense. And how did they get Kirsten Dunst involved? Or Fred Ward for that matter?

We find another girl murdered and her boyfriend on death row paying for the crime he didn’t commit. He’s sent to the chair and then not long after, wakes up in the morgue ready to follow the path of the crow and seek retribution. There’s an interesting use of the trademark eye makeup (which was hardly the bird’s design for the walking dead avenger, more of an afterthought of the original character that has been carried through the series). Here it’s in the form of scar tissue – which although it makes no sense, is a cool idea.

All other cool ideas quickly vanish as the plot goes left, right and centre with very little drama to sustain it all. Turns out it’s all been because of a bunch of bent coppers. Our hero seeks them out, executes them and has a rather rubbish showdown where he sends the man responsible to the chair that he was sent to originally. So bad we even hear the bad guy scream “I’ll be baaaaack!” as he fries.

The soundtrack doesn’t help as it’s a lazy compilation of tunes. In fact they even use Rob Zombie’s Living Dead Girl – which makes no frickin’ sense when the lead character is a living dead guy. I suspect the producer saw the use of the song over the start of the fourth Chucky movie and thought it sounded good. And it does sound good. But it doesn’t belong here. Should have saved it for a sequel with a female Crow (which was once mooted but never gone for). So back to the grave the franchise went – until years later when they found themselves a new angel.

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The film’s climax is probably the biggest let-down of all – just when you expect things to go grand as we watch Ashe climb the exterior of the high-rise, he’s suddenly thrust off and forced into a rather poor showdown at street level involving a take-down of the villain who has taken on the power of the crow.

Then it all ends rather suddenly – the wonky editing suggesting that perhaps something was left on the cutting room floor. And just like that it’s all over and we’re left frowning at the sheer cheek the production had to pull a fast one on us just to make a buck.

The Crow: Salvation

When you do retrospectives you promise yourself that you’ll try to give equal and ample time to each instalment when covering  franchises – no matter how dismal the returns. It’s something that bothers me whenever reading any book or watching any making of documentary. Many franchises released as special edition have documentaries that seem to spend half the time talking about the first film, maybe half of that time talking about a sequel, and then even less time on the films that followed. It’s annoying as, despite how awful a film can be, you still want to find the justifications for it. But having taken on the task myself now I can see why it’s hard to talk about something that barely has any good points. Perhaps if I had access to the filmmakers I could put them under the spotlight and find a few answers.

What the hell was going on in people’s heads when they made The Crow: Salvation? This is probably the messiest script which makes the least sense. And how did they get Kirsten Dunst involved? Or Fred Ward for that matter?

We find another girl murdered and her boyfriend on death row paying for the crime he didn’t commit. He’s sent to the chair and then not long after, wakes up in the morgue ready to follow the path of the crow and seek retribution. There’s an interesting use of the trademark eye makeup (which was hardly the bird’s design for the walking dead avenger, more of an afterthought of the original character that has been carried through the series). Here it’s in the form of scar tissue – which although it makes no sense, is a cool idea.

All other cool ideas quickly vanish as the plot goes left, right and centre with very little drama to sustain it all. Turns out it’s all been because of a bunch of bent coppers. Our hero seeks them out, executes them and has a rather rubbish showdown where he sends the man responsible to the chair that he was sent to originally. So bad we even hear the bad guy scream “I’ll be baaaaack!” as he fries.

The soundtrack doesn’t help as it’s a lazy compilation of tunes. In fact they even use Rob Zombie’s Living Dead Girl – which makes no frickin’ sense when the lead character is a living dead guy. I suspect the producer saw the use of the song over the start of the fourth Chucky movie and thought it sounded good. And it does sound good. But it doesn’t belong here. Should have saved it for a sequel with a female Crow (which was once mooted but never gone for). So back to the grave the franchise went – until years later when they found themselves a new “Angel.”

The Crow: Wicked Prayer

It is then with barely raised eyebrows that we look to the fourth and, yet still somehow worse, fourth instalment.  This is as close as The Crow will get to crossing into a sort of pseudo-western. And setting it in this dusty location with enough daytime scenes you can see how they had potentially an idea or a collection of characters – and then straight fucked it up. And what was missing here was vision.

I put blame squarely on producer Jeff Most for his awful decisions, diminished returns for the films and the song compilations he thought he was so clever at putting together (Seriously Jeff?  Why you selected Rob Zombie’s “Living Dead Girl” for the third film when the character is a guy makes no sense! Context dammit!!!). He also had a hand in the script for the fourth film.

So we find Edward furlong as they new character (clearly star power was not an option) and perhaps the 

It is then with barely raised eyebrows that we look to the fourth and, somehow even worse, instalment.  This is as close as The Crow will get to crossing into a sort of pseudo-western. It’s set in a dusty location with a few day-time scenes and you can see the potential in the idea and the collection of characters – and then they straight fucked it up. What’s missing here is vision.

I put the blame squarely on producer Jeff Most for his awful decisions, diminished returns for the films and the soundtrack compilations he thought he was so clever at putting together. He also had a hand in the script for the fourth film.

So we find Edward Furlong as the new character (clearly star power was not an option) and perhaps the biggest names onboard were Angel’s David Boreanaz as the villain, Tara (what happened to her career?) Reid and a spot for Dennis Hopper.

Wicked Prayer is a mess from start to end. How they justified the nonsensical plot as a good idea is anyone’s guess. But even if they were looking to just make a quick buck, it seems odd that they thought that this mix would have any kind of appeal. The idea of the four-horsemen on the back of a DVD case does sound cool – but when you see what they’ve delivered, you can’t comprehend why they even bothered.

A remake – or fresh tale – is on the way. Let’s hope that Most has been removed as producer and a truly visionary director like Proyas gets to take it somewhere original. Some true emotion behind the story would help, instead of yet another contrived dead man walking the earth. Blade’s Stephen Norrington was in at one point but has since departed 

.

It is then with barely raised eyebrows that we look to the fourth and, somehow even worse, instalment.  This is as close as The Crow will get to crossing into a sort of pseudo-western. It’s set in a dusty location with a few day-time scenes and you can see the potential in the idea and the collection of characters – and then they straight fucked it up. What’s missing here is vision.

I put the blame squarely on producer Jeff Most for his awful decisions, diminished returns for the films and the soundtrack compilations he thought he was so clever at putting together. He also had a hand in the script for the fourth film.

So we find Edward Furlong as the new character (clearly star power was not an option) and perhaps the biggest names onboard were Angel’s David Boreanaz as the villain, Tara (what happened to her career?) Reid and a spot for Dennis Hopper.

Wicked Prayer is a mess from start to end. How they justified the nonsensical plot as a good idea is anyone’s guess. But even if they were looking to just make a quick buck, it seems odd that they thought that this mix would have any kind of appeal. The idea of the four-horsemen on the back of a DVD case does sound cool – but when you see what they’ve delivered, you can’t comprehend why they even bothered.

A remake – or fresh tale – is on the way. Let’s hope that Most has been removed as producer and a truly visionary director like Proyas gets to take it somewhere original. Some true emotion behind the story would help, instead of yet another contrived dead man walking the earth. Blade’s Stephen Norrington was in at one point but has since departed.

Steven Hurst