The Crow is a gothic masterpiece, It's the perfect adaptation of James O'Barr's grief stricken graphic novel. Tragically both the film and the comic are steeped in loss, so much so that it is woven into the very fabric of each respective work.
Barr's original comic is an ode to his late fiance, who was tragically killed by a drunk driver, inspiring Barr to create the comic as a means of dealing with the loss, and of course the film is deeply affected by the on set death of Brandon Lee. The film was finished after his passing out of a sense of duty to the deceased actor and there is something sadly poignant about his passing while playing the role, because when you are looking at the ghost of Eric Draven, you are also looking at the ghost of Brandon Lee.
It is a beautifully made film and has one of the best aesthetics of any comic book movie, from director Alex Proyas's almost apocalyptic vision for downtown Detroit to its quintessentially 90's industrial gothic soundtrack juxtaposed with its haunting orchestral score, every choice is purposeful and literally perfect for the film. The characters are over the top and nearly every line of dialogue is quotable, I swear i can actually recite the whole film by this point.
While it's antagonists are much more larger than life when compared to the comic, the dialogue and story retains all of the sombre poetry of the original graphic novel and I would even go as far as to say that it is better than Barr's original work.
The Crow isn't just a great gothic comic book film, its a heart wrenching meditation on grief and the undying power of love,
and one i will keep coming back to for years to come.
The Crow: City Of Angels is what happens when studios interfere with a film that has the potential to be a good movie if the directors creative vision was fully realized. I know its an unpopular opinion but there's a few things i actually like about City Of Angels, maybe that's just me being nostalgic because I watched this movie loads as a kid but I do believe there is stuff that works here....sort of.
Yes, it looks like the made for MTV version of the original film, complete with a vibrant overly saturated color palette to match its late nineties grunge soundtrack, yes it weirdly decides to throw out the originals classic gothic aesthetic in favor of an odd mix of S&M seediness when creating its dystopian Los Angeles. And yes, the performances range from not good at all to inconsistent with moments of promise.
But for some reason, I enjoy it, It's not good, I cannot excuse the fact that I enjoy it but all the above works for me.
Maybe I'm just happy to watch anything with Mia Kirschner and Iggy Pop in it. I also think Vincent Perez could have been a great Crow with slightly better writing and direction.
But a lot of the films failures like most terrible things in Hollywood are the fault of the Weinstein company who interfered with every aspect of the movie before it was released, making the ending a total hack job.
There's the seeds for a good crow film in the original script certainly, the idea of having The Crow being an avenging parent mourning the death of their child is a really solid foundation to build from, having him be guided by Sarah from the original who he then falls in love with is another good idea, the original idea for the ending having The Crow decide to stay on earth to protect Sarah instead of returning to the afterlife which in turn prevents him from entering heaven, so he is left to walk the earth for all eternity.
They're all good ideas on paper and you can see bits of them in the movie which is probably why i don't hate it, it had potential and it has good moments, just not enough to give it a higher rating. As it stands it just good enough to enjoy and ridiculous enough in parts to laugh out loud at.
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