Directed by Alex Proyas
Written by James O'Barr (comic book series and comic strip); David J. Schow, John Shirley (screenplay)
Starring Brandon Lee, Rochelle Davis, Ernie Hudson, Michael Wincott, Bai Ling
Genre: Action / Crime / Fantasy / Thriller
Country: USA
Runtime: 102 minutes
MPAA Rating: Rated R for violence and language, and for drug use and some sexuality

Evaluation: 8/10
by Greg Ferguson





The current upswing in darkly themed screen adaptations of popular comics owes a great debt to the visual mastery, adult themes, and cultish success of 1994's The Crow. Though some will doubtlessly herald Tim Burton's first two Batman features as the true progenitors of this trend, they were largely soulless fantasies (like much of his total body of work) lacking the added emotional force and grittiness with which Alex Proyas and screenwriters David J. Schow and John Shirley temper their gruesome plot and lavish art direction. Indeed, the original germs of the modern grown-up comic book film renaissance are to be found in Burton's authentic depiction of 1940's Gotham City, and to some degree Mark Goldblatt's interpretation of The Punisher of the same year, but it's The Crow that went all the way, engaging audiences on every level with a mix of style and purpose. Compared to today's more sophisticated productions, it holds up impressively well.

The story unfolds rather briskly with a minimum of character development, although what we're given is potent enough to sustain the action it precedes. Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) and his fiancée are murdered savagely at the beginning and survived by Sarah (Rochelle Davis), a teenager befriended by the charming couple, and Sergeant Albrecht (Ernie Hudson), the cop on the scene the night it happened. They number among the few decent people in a claustrophobic city otherwise teeming with street scum and scoundrels, the more villainous of whom were responsible as a group for throwing raping Shelly in front of Eric before throwing him from the window of his high-rise apartment and leaving her for dead badly beaten. Where we pick up is a year after the fact on Devil's Night - the eve before Halloween made notoriously popular for the very same gang's spectacular displays of arson. As we are told by Sarah in narration, when a person dies their soul is escorted to the afterlife by a crow and, on very special occasions when it is merited, is allowed to return to life in order to correct grave injustice, so it should come as no surprise that on the anniversary of his death Eric is allowed to come back so he may seek vengeance. What follows is an often violent quest to rid the city of the evildoers who choke it dry of any goodness and, by example of Eric and Shelly, stands in the way of that most sublime of human experiences - love.

To my surprise, I found the typically masochistic and masturbatory vigilante premise was afforded a good deal of charisma and humour thanks to the Brandon Lee's gleefully wicked turn as The Crow. Sadly, everything else about Lee and this film are anathema, part of a legacy of Hollywood tragedy. Most will remember this as the film where a prop gun was involved in the accidental shooting death of Lee, throwing into the question its fate and prematurely ending the life of a very promising new star in a manner not unlike the character he portrayed. Luckily, thanks to the resourcefulness of the filmmakers and procuring a body double and gingerly using special effects, Lee - through this film - was made able to live on.

As for the film itself, what ensures its continued following is its richly textured look and feel. Proyas is a gifted visionary able to conjure worlds at once stifling and curiously intricate; a sort of romanticized drabness like that done to perfection in his following film, Dark City, one of the greatest ever made. In The Crow, Detroit City feels reduced to a grimy cul-de-sac of a few menacing landmarks, with a palpable sense of apprehension heightened by his subtle exaggerations of familiar cityscapes (much in the same way Martin Scorsese did by altering the dimensions of the boxing ring in Raging Bull). After watching it for the first time, I was compelled to watch it again in order to better absorb the nuances of his images.

The Crow isn't without its flaws, though. Its mythical basis is confusing and vaguely defined (why it is not Shelly who is brought back, or both she and Eric, is never made clear), and Eric's rebirth as The Crow is an unbelievably preternatural ascent to power considering the bewilderment and turmoil one might expect from suddenly being jerked back to life. These are minor quibbles, however, as the film is much more memorable for what it does exceedingly well. While modern day films like Batman Begins, Sin City, and Blade II may have bested The Crow with their technical and creative razzle-dazzle, it is not easily forgotten.

(The Crow is available on DVD and may be rented from Spin It Video located at 15 Lewis St., Moncton.)