Eric and Shelley found true love together. This is October 30th, Devil’s night, and the couple is about to get married the next day. What could go wrong? Actually, a lot. A bunch of street thugs break into their appartment and beat them up, they rape the poor girl and throw her soon-to-be-husband through the window. He’s dead, and she’ll be after long hours of suffering in an hospital. Now what? Is it over for Eric Draven? Not yet. A mysterious force personnified by a crow brings him back from the dead one year later in order for him to seek revenge. All dressed in black and with his face painted eerily, Draven carefully kills the criminals who took his life. Bullets can’t even stop his wrath.
“The Crow” has an intriguing premise, but the screenplay is badly written, the characters are one-dimensional and unoriginal and the dialogue is dreadful. There are a few cool one-liners, though, like “They’re all dead. They just don’t know it yet.” I also really dig the avenging hero. He’s terrifyingly determined, and he’s really well interpreted by Brandon Lee (who died during the shoot). He really has strong screen presence, and he looks way cool with face painting.
Unfortunately, the film is just so B. It tries to be more, but in the end, it ain’t any better than those straight-to-video horror thrillers no one ever hears of because their star didn’t die during a scene. I just hate the supporting parts. The bad guys are all unbelievable and the good guys are just so lame. You got a small girl on a skateboard who wanders the street who seems to be there to show The Crow’s big heart of gold, but she just makes the film more boring. There’s also a black cop who’s just so stereotypical, absolutely, annoyingly pointless.
What about the direction? Actually, Alex Proyas has potential. I mean, I just loved his latest film, the truly impressive “Dark City”. But in The Crow, he’s still an amateur from the MTV school. The whole film is set in darkness and rain, in dirty streets and badly lighted appartments. Visually, it’s sometimes interesting, but too many scenes just don’t work. Cause there is a lot of potential in the movie, it’s just wasted. I love the soundtrack (NIN, The Cure), and some action scenes are enjoyable and as mentionned, I liked Lee in the title role. He just deserved to be in a better film.