Overall Rating
  Awesome: 60.27%
Worth A Look: 21.92%
Average: 6.16%
Pretty Bad: 10.96%
Total Crap: 0.68%
6 reviews, 110 user ratings
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| Crow, The |
by Brian McKay
"The film that killed and immortalized its star still holds up quite well"
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"What price Immortality?" is a question that I'm sure Brandon Lee's family, friends, and fans have asked in the years after his untimely death on the set of THE CROW. Was making a movie worth dying over? Of course not. But as far as swan songs goes, Lee could have done a hell of a lot worse. While Brandon Lee was a merely competent genre actor who was probably never going to win any gold statuettes, his portrayal here of Eric Draven, a.k.a. "The Crow", brings an unexpected level of depth and empathy to what is basically a simplistic revenge play protagonist. One could argue that it's the role he was born (and died) to play.The film wastes little time with backstory, as we are instantly thrust into the dark world of The Crow's alternate Detroit. And the thing you notice in the opening shots is the thing you'll continue to notice througout the film- the directing, cinematography, and art and set design of this film are all top-notch, creating a distinctly visceral atmosphere that is itself one of the film's lead characters. As with the opening shots of a similarly dark and moody film like Blade Runner, the initial crow's-eye view that swoops down over a perpetually rainy cityscape of industrial wastelands, seedy nightclubs, and burned-out tenements lets you know instantly that you're not in Kansas anymore. A brief voiceover from a young girl explains the notion that a crow takes departed souls to the afterlife - only in some cases, when a horrible wrong must first be righted, it can bring one of those souls back.
Meet Eric Draven (Lee), an aspiring young rock musician who comes home to find his beloved girlfriend Shelly (Sofia Shinas) being raped and beaten by four thugs. After shooting him and tossing him out of a sixth-floor window to his death, they leave Shelly for dead as well. She is found by Sargeant Albrecht (Ernie Hudson), a former homicide detective who was busted back to street cop for "sticking his nose where it didn't belong" (in other words, trying to do his job). He stays by Shelly's side through 30 hours of surgery, but she doesn't make it.
A year later, the only person who seems to still miss Shelly and Eric is Sarah, (Rochelle Davis), a young skate punk whose heroin-addict mother is too busy shooting up and screwing her dirtbag criminal boyfriend to pay much attention to her daughter. Sarah leaves flowers on the graves of her friends on the anniversary of their murders, and notices a crow landing on Eric's tombstone. Not long afterward, Eric claws his way up from the grave with an immunity to bullets, the ability to "see" the memories and pain of others, and only one agenda on his plate - payback.
Now, I'm not going to jump the fanboy bandwagon and say that this is one of the greatest films of all time. The truth is, there are some things that annoy me about it. The score tends to wax far too melodramatic at times, the script occasionally grows repetetive (If I have to hear somebody say "It can't rain all the time" one more fucking time . . . ), and some of the cast just doesn't cut the mustard. Rochelle Davis, who is not only a major character but the film's narrator, is a horribly monotone little thing. I know she was just a kid when this was filmed, but I've seen peformances three times better from kids half of her age. It comes as no surprise that her movie career began and ended with this film.
But for its shortcomings, the film has so much more going for it. In a lot of ways, The Crow is like a really cool theme restaurant. Yeah, the food's not bad, but the atmosphere is killer. The film consistently hits just the right note of moodiness, bolstered by a soundtrack that still kicks ass even ten years later. Nothing gets you in the mood for a little back-from-the-dead ass whooping like seeing that crow's eye view swooping over the city to the Thrill Kill Kult's After the flesh, or seeing Brandon Lee leaping across building tops to the Cure's Burn or Nine Inch Nails' version of Dead Souls. Like the visual atmosphere, the soundtrack becomes as much of a character as any of the actors.
Likewise, most of the actors themselves are up to the task. Ernie Hudson's portrayal of the gruff but big-hearted cop is a more than welcome ally for the Crow. And in the villain's gallery, we have the great, gravel-voiced Michael Wincott as top villain "Top-Dollar", the sexy Ling Bai as his creepy but hot Asian girlfriend, David Patrick Kelly as Top-Dollar's vile scumbag lieutenant "T-Bird", and Jon Polito as an endearingly sleazy pawn shop owner. You couldn't ask for a more entertaining group of character actors for the Crow to exact vengeance upon.
But the real heart of the film is The Crow himself, who has life breathed into him by Lee. While never in any danger of being a great actor, Lee was one of the many actors in the industry who benefitted from nice-guy syndrome. Even if his acting chops weren't always up to snuff, he carried himself with a genuinely likable charisma that could even make a crapfest like Showdown in Little Tokyo tolerable. He infuses this role with that same kind of charisma, stalking about the dark alleyways as The Crow with a feline grace and a superhero poise that transcend the character's comic book incarnation. He effectively conveys rage and grief when he needs to, and spends the rest of the time looking and acting cool, spouting great one-liners, and kicking bad guy ass. Really, what more can you ask for in a revenge-action hero?Not only did THE CROW mark Lee's demise, but it also marked the only worthy entry in a franchise that should have died with him. As someone who's seen both of the subsequent CROW films, you can take my word for it that it's best to just pretend the original never had a sequel. While Lee's unfortunate death was a sad thing for both his loved ones and movie fans alike, we can at least be grateful that he gave us a solid film to remember him by. Somehow, I don't think he would have been quite so fondly recalled if he had died on the set of LASER MISSION.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=754&reviewer=258
originally posted: 09/27/04 07:33:50
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USA
11-May-1994 (R)
UK
N/A
Australia
06-Jul-1994 (MA)
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