The Crow Movie Reviews

If you think you've seen all great superhero movies -- The Batman's, The Superman's and The Spiderman's etc and if you believe that they are the ultimate .. THINK AGAIN.. That's because THE CROW directed by Alex Proyas is a stunning work of art -- Full of action,full of style and full of eerie, atmospheric special effects. It is also one of those movies that raised an action star from nowhere in Brandon Lee -- yes, the nephew of THE ORIGINAL BRUCE LEE.

The Legend of the crow goes that when something bad happens and when the soul of the dead is unhappy because of it, the crow will bring back the dead from its grave and bring him back to life again to settle the unifinished business on earth. He'll be powerful, ruthless and invincible. He won't rest until he sees of everything that stands on his way.

Brandon plays Eric, an Ex- Rock star who gets murdered along with his fiance on the eve of their  wedding day. One year later, on Halloween's day The crow brings back the unhappy soul to life to take vengence on those who committed the murders. Of course there's action here and there's visual style but one shouldn't ignore the basic underlying romance theme of the movie -- The Crow is as much a romance movie as it is a superhero movie.

One major highlight of the film apart from Brandon's performance is the cinematography. Cinematographer Dariuss Wolski has done a fine job making the movie as eerie and as dark as it can get. The camera swirls high above the city much like a spider cam and covers extreme wide angle shots. The scenes where we see the crow flies through those big tall buildings is a sheer delight to watch. Of course the atmosphere and the mood of the movie has been inspired to an extent by Tim Burton's Batman movies but still -- WHAT STYLE!!

The soundtrack plays to the mood of the film making it a hypnotic, haunting work of art. There are moments in the film which are primarily driven by hard core music.

And then we have Brandon Lee.. Ooof..!! What a performance it was..!! I know many reviewers say it emphatically but I mean it in every sense of the word. It was a star making performance but unfortunately he got shot dead during the climax sequence. What Irony isn't it..?? The protagonist is playing a character who raises back from death and ironically it would seem he himself gets accidentally killed in real !! You want more..?? Even Bruce Lee was killed in the same manner while shooting for Enter the Dragon.

Anyways we are not here to talk about death's and miseries but to talk about movies and entertainment. And this is hell of a movie.. And Sheer Entertainment is what you get out of it in the end..!! . Go watch it for Brandon Lee -- It's a performance of extreme athleticism, ardor and indeed Charisma.. I'm going with 5 out of 5 for Alex Proyas's THE CROW. Stay till the curtain's close for a pleasant surprise.. :)

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The pitch black night is serene and the vibrating strings of the guitar has come to rest. Its time to pay tribute to a fallen actor and a film noir masterpiece...

People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can't rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right. - from the 1994 movie The Crow.

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The Crow

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The Crow is a tale of Eric Draven, an up and coming rock star, and his girlfriend Shelley Webster, who are brutally murdered on a halloween night by a gang of cut throats, lead by Top Dollar. A year later, Draven rises from the dead, his soul bonding with that of a Crow. The crow becomes Draven's link with the world.

Blessed with supernatural powers, Draven dons the garb of the crow and sets forth on his earthly quest of destroying the evil gang that took away everything he had... including life. What follows is a blood-fest which leaves only one man standing - The Crow!

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The Movie

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Right from the first frame, the Crow demonstrates a host of unique characteristics that made it the Film Noir classic that it is.

The camera moves around in a fluid vertigo inducing motion, capturing dark images that can leave one feeling totally awestruck. It alternates from normal view to birds eye view (crow-vision), courtesy the winged creature that watches all the action from above, in silence.

The film also avoids the normal colour palette and opts for eerie dark tones that add to the atmospheric qualities of the movie.

An awesome soundtrack that includes some brilliant rock tracks and a lot of ambient passages adds to the overall effect.

The Crow has great production values and is a treat to watch.

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The Cast

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Brandon Lee, The son of the late great Bruce Lee, plays the lead role of Eric Draven aka The Crow. The actor struck all the right chords in this movie, playing the role of a rock star in love and the dark brooding avenger with relative ease and conviction. The gang of cut throats add to the general mood by wreaking havoc whenever they got a chance. The rest of the cast act as mere props as Brandon Lee carries the tale on his able shoulders.

Sadly, for Brandon, the movie came with a heavy price. During the filming of a fight sequence where the evil-doers spray the hero with bullets, a freak accident occurred. The guns were all loaded with blanks and aimed at Brandon. Unfortunately, one of the gun's malfunctioned and a fragment of metal was fired out of it....

... it found its way into Brandon's heart... the actor lost his life...

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R.I.P Brandon

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The Crow was based on a comic of the same name. The story of a dark avenger whose mission was to destroy the darkest forces of evil. Just like the comic book hero's immortality... Brandon Lee lives on forever in the minds of those who have experienced - The Crow.

This is a story that will touch that raw nerve inside your soul...

~finis~

Footnotes

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The Crow spawned a Sequel called The Crow - City Of Angels starring Vincent Perez in the role of The Crow. There was also another movie called The Crow - Stairway to Heaven. It was based on this tale (the one I reviewed) but formatted for the small screen.

The crow happens to be my favourite bird along with its ilk - the raven, the rook, the magpie and so on...

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The Crow was made in 1994 and even though loads of people had recommended it to me (ok, bout 3 actually) I never actually got round to watching it. That was until I saw it in the sales section for £6, so I bought it and took it home (which is what you want to do when you’ve bought something really!). I still didn’t watch it. It took me a few nights, but yesterday afternoon, bored of the net, I gave it a watch. It took me 2 minutes to get totally engrossed in the film due to the way it’s done.

First of all though, I must pay my respects to Brandon Lee who played the leading role in this film. He was sadly accidentally killed during the shooting of the film, but they still managed to complete the film somehow. He was filming a scene where he gets shot repetitively and one of the caps of a blank got accidentally lodged in his spine after penetrating his abdomen. The doctors worked for five hours, to no avail. Brandon Lee, 1965-1993.

The crow is a Fantasy/Action/Thriller all rolled into one. The basic premise is that on Devils Night (the night before Halloween when a gang in the city go wild, killing anybody and anything and setting fire to places). Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) and Shelly Webster (Sofia Shinas) get caught up in Devils Night. Shelly gets beaten and Raped by a gang of guys while Eric is beaten and then killed. Shelly also dies in the next few days.

The fantasy bit comes in here! Basically, there is an old tale that a Crow can bring you back from the dead to carry out duties which you didn’t fulfil in your life. Eric’s duty is to hunt down the gang and kill them off one by one to get revenge for what happened to him and his fiancé. Now, you may be thinking ‘hang on, slow down there, that’s a load of crap’ and yes, it most probably is (although non of us know that this isn’t true do we!?) So, Eric is bought back from the dead, lead by a mysterious crow who basically shows Eric the way to the people who killed him. He returns to his home, and as he touches things, memories are flashed before him, memories of him and his girlfriend having a good time, but also memories of the brutal killing and raping.

As Eric has been bought back from the dead, he can’t be killed, he is already dead and any injuries instantly heal themselves, making him invincible and able to carry out the killings with ease, safe in the knowledge that whatever he does, he won’t get hurt. He starts on his quest.

Mixed in with all this, there is a side plot, which is basically with the NYPD and also a young girl, who’s mother is addicted to drugs. The young Girl, Sarah (Rochelle Davis) was always looked after by Shelly and Eric and now lives her life skateboarding around the streets, but as with most kids that have to look after themselves, she has her head well and truly screwed on. The NYPD’s detectives and the cop we see most, don’t see eye to eye on things. However, the Cop knows Sarah and he always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or according to him, the right place at the right time. He knew Eric and that’s how he knows Sarah, he also takes Sarah under his wing in a way.

What’s all this got to do with the story? Well you’ve got the NYPD after the bloke who is killing off people (Eric) who are the hardest gang in town, making the killings look easy. You also have the cop who knows Eric is back, helping Eric out after seeing what the gang are capable of. Sarah also knows of Eric’s existence.

So, that’s the basic storyline. Sounds a bit weird doesn’t it, well just remember that this film is listed as a fantasy and like I always say, films wouldn’t be any good if they were all true to life! If you remember that it’s a fantasy and stop trying to look at it in other way’s, then you will find the film great, if you keep pulling it down and saying ‘well that’s impossible’ you won’t enjoy it one bit. My advice is to sit back and enjoy.

The film is very dark. What I mean by that is that all the scenery is dark. Most of the scenes were shot at night and the film revolves around gothic characters and gothic surroundings. So prepare your TV set to be showing you a lot of black! If it’s not black, it’s a dull grey! However, this adds to the horror side of the film, making the surroundings that bit more eerie and also gives you a sense of insecurity, or so I found anyway, maybe that was just me!

To go with the gothic surroundings and settings, you have a great rock soundtrack. A few scenes will have actual bands playing the songs, but most of the time it is just background music. I bet you can set the scene with the gothicness and rock tracks being played. Eric himself is dressed as a Goth, why this is I really don’t know, maybe I just didn’t get that bit. A few songs from the soundtrack then:

Burn – The Cure

Big Empty – Stone Temple Pilots

Colour me Once – Violent Femmes

Darkness – Rage against the Machine

Some of the scenes are quite, I wouldn’t say graphic, but more provocative in a violent sort of way. For example, a couple of the ‘people’ in the film eat peoples eyeballs, and although you don’t see it, you do see the eyeball cooking. You also see a scene where they are just about to take someone’s eyeballs out. So, you are given the idea of what they are going to do, which in some peoples minds can be more disturbing than seeing the actions actually carried out on screen. I suppose it really depends on your mind and how it takes different things!

What did I think of the film? Well I loved it. It was something different, I’ll give it that, it also pulled you into the film and kept you hanging on, even though all the film revolves around really is killing a bunch of people. If you haven’t seen it and it sounds up your street, it will be and I thoroughly recommend it.

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It's hard not to watch this movie and think about what a star Brandon Lee could have become as a result of this great piece of work. I don't have anything bad to say about this movie, except that at one or two parts (albeit small and insignificant parts) the acting/scripting is a bit cheesy. The story follows a man who rises from the grave to seek revenge on those who murdered him and his fiancee. The plot, at first sight, seems pretty basic, but this really is a fun movie to watch, not to mention a kick cool soundtrack. Really cool. I recommend this one to pretty much anyone who won't be offended by the R-rated material. And by the way, if you watch this movie with a friend, and that friend tries to point out the scene in which Brandon Lee was really killed, well that footage is not in the movie at all. The Director took it out of the film and burned it.

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The Crow...WOW...A great action packed movie...

Not for the weak hearted...Great for the cold blooded prodigy watchers of such movies...

Don't you just love violence? It definitly keeps me going...

It's a revenge plot just like the rest of them...Though it has it's own original creativity...Right from start to finish...

Brandon works his charm on this film...Though the ending is'nt such a good one...He actually gets himself killed in the making...With a fully loaded machine gun which is supposed to have blanks in...Some fool put live bullets in the gun and during this one scene in the making, which is so realistic by far the poor guys gets himself shot...

It's about this guy and gal who are about to get married and these gangster hooligans drug addicts break into their apartment and kill the both of them..

So anyways they both die and are burried and after a year on the same day that they were to get married Brandon comes back to life and is resurrected from his grave...But the thing is he's not atually a live...His life is in the form of a crow (THE CROW)...As long as this crow is a live Brandon will live...Everything this crow sees Brandon sees..If anything happens to the crow Brandon faces the concequences...In otherwords he dies...''Am I making any sense to you all''

So anyways to get to the point, there's alot of blood and guts in this movie...Great shooting scenes...And plenty of violence to kick you to hell and back...

Any ways, what I'd say to you is that you should go out and rent the movie...It's kicks major ass...

And by the way it's kind of scary so I suggest you watch this movie with someone, just for the sake of holding their hand...

It freaked me OUT...Big time...

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