“Abashed the Devil stood and felt how awful goodness is”
Miramax had quite the time trying to appeal to major audiences, I mean Warner Brothers had the Batman franchise, and Orion Pictures had Robocop. Miramax needed money to stay a float during theses times where Blockbusters would destroy the box-office, leaving independent company such as Miramax high and dry for cash. So the company that brought audiences movies like:My Left Foot and Red, would have to try something drastic. In comes Alex Proyas’ “The Crow”, a pure early 90’s superhero flick painted in a gothic grungy overtone…so how does it fair? well let’s look.
WHAT I LOVED ABOUT THE CROW
-The setting: Seemed quite gothic in nature, which was essentially what it was suppose to entail, a sort of Burtonesque cityscape, where villain’s run amock and terror is on the rise. Sharp Steeples on the churchs, dark mooded picture for a dark story to come.
-The Story: a true-to-form average everyday revenge story involving a immortal man….reminds me of Highlander and the Punisher, where a man is killed and the people he loves are killed and it’s up to him to take vengeance on thoses who have wronged him. I’m not saying it’s bad, quite the opposite, it’s a really cool concept for a film in the early 90’s for sure. Especially the circumstances that theses events take place, I mean the guy’s girlfriend is rape/beaten/stabbed/etc. He is shot, and thrown out of a 6 story window. The man deserves his vengeance.
-Alex Proyas: Really great director, and if you don’t know the name, well here are some of the films he has directed: Dark City (one of my favorites), Garage Days, I,Robot, and Knowing. He loves to dwelve into the sci-fi nature in a real world realm. The Crow isn’t truly essentially a real world kind of place, in some instances it is, but what he does with the surreal aspect is just fun and intense. He knows how to play around with the camera and gives the audience some well deserve thrills.
-The fact that they used Miniatures: My friend Scott knows all about this, as much as CG is a great tool, it shouldn’t be used to carry your film, unless it’s something like Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, you know, when they have creatures and such (once I do my Event Horizon review, you’ll understand why It bugs me) but the fact that a movie like The Crow would use miniatures for their landscapes and such, it’s just smart filmmaking. Why use CGI, when sometimes it becomes dated, and doesn’t look as good as when it orignally released, when you could use real environment as backdrop to lure the audience in, and keep the real world feel. Miniatures last longer as backdrops then CGI does…George Lucas will understand that one day!
-The Acting: it’s basic 90’s acting, so nothing truly spectacular, but I will give it to Brandon Lee (son of Bruce Lee mind you) who does a pretty good job acting like a man in pain….too bad he died making this movie.
WHAT I HATED ABOUT THE CROW
There wasn’t much I disliked about the movie, but I do have a fiew points.
-Some of the character’s dialogue were kind of off: As much as I love a little nod to Poe’s “The Raven”, he pretty much intimidated a guy with a complete lyric. Also some of the character’s were kind of too off the wall, it’s fun to be off the wall, but when they are trying to be menacing, it becomes pathetic really, maybe that’s what Proyas was trying to convey, but it was a little turn off.
-It’s essentially a 90’s film: This is minor, and I know Scott is gonna be like “WTF man!” but it’s essentially true, a lot of film’s theses days cater to other film generations, for instance, a film like let’s say The Dark Knight, will be watchable 10 year’s from now and still seem like “Oh that could happen now, or , it feels present day, and not something made 10 years ago” but the Crow feels dated. It was made for a 90’s generation where people were into Grunge and listened to Nirvana on a daily bases.
OVERALL
The Crow is still a really fun action/superhero/revenge type film, but it does feel a little dated. It should still keep it’s cult status as far as i’m concerned.
RATING: 4 OUT OF 5