The Crow

1994 goth superhero story

Rating: 10/20

Plot: A rock star comes back from the dead and terrorizes the gang responsible for killing him and his girlfriend. A supernatural crow helps him out.

A piece of information that nobody reading this would possibly care about: This movie is the reason that I'm currently watching movies from 1994 and trying to put together a favorites list from that year. The person who suggested that year is a big fan of the movie and likely will be disappointed when it doesn't come anywhere near my top-ten list.

I hadn't seen this since I saw it in a movie theater on the north side of Terre Haute as a college student. It's likely that I was already too old to be in the demographic this was made for since it's such a childish goth superhero story. I didn't like it then, but I thought I might appreciate it more now for whatever reason. It's a film fueled by style and attitude, and there's a soft spot in my heart for these sorts of style-over-substance movies.

That style, as you could probably guess from an action movie made in the first half of the 90s, is reminiscent of music videos made during the previous decade. There's all this slow-mo crow flow, this almost cartoonish darkness, all this flashy editing with oppressive whooshes, and an irritating 90's score. Whooshes! Add some black and white wavy crow-cam, improbable lighting that creates improbable shadows, and bubblegum action sequences, and you have yourself enough style to excite the Hot Topics crowd, the kind of faux-goth kids who can't remember if Robert Smith was the lead singer of Depeche Mode or not. There's an artificiality to these swooping monochromatic shots of urban decay that foreshadows Sin City, but there's one key difference--it just doesn't look cool.

You know what else isn't cool about this? This likely won't be a popular opinion, but it's Brandon Lee. In fact, I'd say he's really kind of a dork in this. Brandon Lee didn't have 1/4 the charisma of his father, and nearly everything he says in this is stupid. I mean, that fits in perfectly with this world director Alex Proyas and (I assume since I've never seen a copy) comic book scribe James O'Barr are creating. All of the characters have these clownish noir lines, half-menacing and half-comic. That's when they're not calling each other names like "stupid asshair," something that one of the bad guys actually says in this movie. "Take your shot, Fun Boy, You got me dead bang." That's another line in the movie. Oh, and "Caw caw bang fuck I'm dead!" is in there somewhere, too. That might be my favorite. So a lot of the dorkiness isn't Brandon Lee's fault, but when one character--the stock surly police chief character played by some guy whose name I'm not going to bother looking up--describes him as a "cartoon character with a painted face," it was hard to argue with him.

The man did have beautiful hair though.

There's barely a plot here at all. It's a stylized revenge fantasy, and even if you weren't lucky to catch this movie almost twenty-five years ago, you'll still know exactly where it's going. One character said, "This is already boring the shit out of me," and even though it was early, I agreed completely. There are lots of moments where these actors, without all the edits and added special effects, had to feel pretty stupid during the making of this. It generally moves as if it's in a hurry to get to the next big shoot-'em-up sequence, but it does slow down for some really schmaltzy parts complete with orchestral music and gaggy dialogue.

Four other things not worth mentioning but that I'll mention anyway:

1) This character Gideon, played by Coen regular Jon Polito, has a great recurring exclamation: "Shit on me! Shit on me!" I might add that to my vernacular actually. Cut off in traffic? "Shit on me!" I'll holler with a raised fist. Can't find a ripe avocado at the grocery store? That's worthy of a "Shit on me!"

2) There are two live bands shown in this movie, and one of them is My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, a band I haven't thought of since 1994. I didn't like them then, but I kind of liked what I saw in the movie. I thought the band with the female lead singer might have been Hole, but I don't think that's right now and am too tired to figure out exactly who it was. They should have gotten Sheryl Crow to do something though.

3) At one point, Brandon Lee alludes to Poe's "The Raven," and that confused me. I already get alligators and crocodiles confused, and now I can't figure out if there's a difference between ravens and crows. Or ravens and writing desks for that matter.

4) Some Coors product placement is fun, but I wish it had been Zima. Brandon Lee holds up a bottle and looks at it like he's never seen a bottle before. It made me laugh, but I'm not sure it was supposed to. And it did not make me thirst for a Coors.