EL CUERVO

The Crow (1994)

I hadn't seen it for about ten years and as the full moon came beaming through my apartment window late last night, it just felt right to indulge in some Proyas Gothic excellence.

The question still taps away at all our doors, namely would the film be the cult classic it became without the Brandon Lee tragedy? That's a tricky one to answer because we all deep down have a morbid curiosity about us, especially with films and their stars. This is why I got a lot more from re-watching the movie after a very long period of time, namely that it may have drew many of us in years ago because of the tragedy and heart aching back story to writer James O'Barr's birthing of Eric Draven the character, but it can now enthral, thrill and shatter emotions of its own accord.

The Gothic art design and the soundtrack are emo personified before such a label was invented, Lee is lithe and skilful and serving notice to what a talent we were robbed of that fateful day in March 1993. The villains are a roll call of go to guys for such roles, Kelly, Wincott, Todd, while Ernie Hudson fronts up as good cop personified. And finally Proyas, struggling with the budget even before Brandon's death, that he manages to create this world of perpetual bleakness, but still offer hope and beauty - the latter via tracking shots, pull aways and intricate frame shots of a tormented Draven, shows him to be a purveyor of considerable skills.

All told, The Crow (1994) deserves to not be thought of as a cult classic, but just as a classic, period. 9.5/10

The following is a long form review that I originally wrote in 2011.

In the vein of films like The Punisher and Mad Max, The Crow first hit my screen only four years ago, way back when my DVD collection consisted of only about 40 films, (now it is around 500). I had $10 to my name but I was intent on expanding the thing, a girl I'd met only that day, suggested I buy it from Sanity, when there used to be one in Civic. Since that day, when I was well and truly blown away by it, we've always intended to make our tradition of "Crow and Coffee" (wherein you watch The Crow and drink several litres of Ice Coffee & Bailey's) a repeated thing.

I feel as if this one should have been known to me for far longer than it has. It's quite a point of shame in the Goth community to have none been raised on the shit. And I can tell why. The film blends some of the most incredible bands out (The Cure, Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Violent Femmes, Pantera), is filled with great actors, it's based on one of the best comics I've ever had the good fortune of reading, and it's overshadowed by the death of the actor playing lead protagonist Eric Draven, Brandon Lee, son of martial arts master Bruce Lee.

The Crow is filled with the dark and ominous. Towards the end, Draven fights using a martial arts move that was performed in honour of Brandon Lee's father, Bruce Lee, when he used an identical style in Enter the Dragon, the last film his father ever starred in, before his untimely death. In another scene, Draven can be seen filling a gun-barrel up with metal, and shooting them out into a pawn shop, Brandon Lee was killed on set during filming, when a metal casing became lodged in a gun that was then expelled by a blank, fatally wounding Lee in the torso. Behind the scenes, on the first day of shooting a carpenter suffered sever burns on set after his crane hit power lines. Later, a grip truck caught fire, an angry sculpting employee crashed his car through the set's plaster shop and another member of the crew accidentally impaled his own hand with a screwdriver. According to the biography of Bruce Lee, Brandon's death was predicted by his father after awakening from a coma, he foresaw Brandon's death long before he had even considered taking up acting, supposedly.

By no accounts is The Crow unpredictable, it's rather the opposite, but it makes up for this in so many ways! It notches up some of the best quotes in film history, as well as being badass, and yet so utterly convincingly emotional. There is essentially no demographic I can think of that wouldn't enjoy (at least a little) this dark film's gothic atmosphere, gritty hopelessness, world-changing special effects, riveting action, and well-deserved cult status.

91%

-Gimly

Well if you though it was wet on "Blade Runner" (1982) then welcome to a ruined city where the torrential rain never seems to stop. A series of flashbacks tells us that two graves hold the bodies of a young couple about to be married. That's before local kingpin "Top Dollar" (Michael Wincott), who had designs on their building, sent his henchmen to "coax" them out. A year after this tragedy a crow alights on the grave of "Eric" (Brandon Lee) and enlivens his corpse so that he may avenge the brutality visited on his fiancée and himself. What now ensues is a dark and menacing revenge thriller that, though fairly predictable, sees this former rock musician develop some astonishingly lethal ninja skills as he identifies and then rather entertainingly despatches a variety of drug dealing undesirables whilst retaining a sense of the decent by befriending local cop "Albrecht" (Ernie Hudson) and re-connecting with the young "Sarah" (Rochelle Davis) whose mother is another of the addicts in this dismal and hopeless city. It's the enigmatic "Myca" (Bai Ling) who spots the Achilles heel of our hero and so sets a scene with her menacing beau as "Eric" hones in on the final stage of a challenge that will hopefully allow him to return to his own grave in peace. Lee is really is in his element here and Alex Proyas and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski use the grim, sodden and ruined environment to depict as physical a corruption as the story does a societal one. What dialogue there is is largely left to an engaging contribution from Hudson, who has his own mini axe to grind with his police colleagues who saw him busted from detective for trying to investigate the activities of "Dollar" before. When you watch this film, you can't help but think on the number of other characterisations it has spawned, and it shows how revenge horror can work without resorting to endless special effects and jump-scenes. A cinema screening is best - a big dark room that makes you hear that relentless rain fall all around you.

This is my first viewing of The Crow and it is a great, dark comic book adaptation that at times reminded me of Batman and moments that seemed to later inspire The Dark Knight, in particular with The Joker. It's a shame about Brandon Lee as he is amazing in the lead and this could've led to a great career. There are some poignant scenes and a genuine heart at its core. Just a home run from Alex Poyas. 4.25/5

Great! All the more impressive given offscreen events.

The awful behind the scenes stuff with lead Brandon Lee was all that I knew about <em>'The Crow'</em>; I only learned it was a superhero flick in the lead-up to watching it, I had always assumed it was a straight up horror. No better time to watch it, what with the reboot out now... gotta see the sequels first!

There is a strong performance from Lee in there, Ernie Hudson is also someone I enjoyed in this. The rest of those onscreen are all positives, namely Rochelle Davis and Michael Wincott. I don't have any real complaints with this as a film, the feel is aesthetically, audibly and tonally spot on - plenty of Evanescence/Bring Me to Life and Gotham City vibes.