B Plus Movies

The job of art is to act as a gymnasium for the emotions. I realize others may differ with my assessment, but I think it’s a pretty good one. You look at a painting, you listen to a piece of music or watch a performance and you know it’s good if you feel something. Sometimes, you seek out things that make you feel a certain way, like renting a love story to feel more romantical. Sometimes, you find things that confirm that yes, other people have felt what you’re feeling right now.

This is how I came to The Crow.

By the standards of B+ Movies, I probably shouldn’t be reviewing The Crow: This is a film which most of you have probably already seen, that was on the big screen, and that is pretty well known. The reason I’m going to review it anyway is that I’d like to talk about it’s sequels and a proper examination of them can’t be made without first explaining to what they’re being compared.

The base concept behind The Crow and all it’s bastard children is this: Someone who had no business being killed has their life ended while they still have things to do. The person can’t rest until they’ve gotten revenge for the injustice visted upon them and because of this, something lets them rise from the grave to balance the scales.  This person is granted invulnerability and a guide in the form of a black bird, genus Corvus.

The Crow starred Brandon Lee and it is sad that one of the main reasons you’ve probably heard about the film is that Brandon lost his life when a lead plug in a prop pistol came loose and became a very real bullet, the projectile entering Brandon’s body and inflicting a fatal wound. Brandon gave an immensely passionate performance as Eric Draven, a musician whose girlfriend gets raped and killed shortly before they are to be wed on Halloween night.

As the plot unfolds, we find out that Eric and his girlfriend were killed to prepare for Devil’s Night, which is based on the all too real repeat occurance of people setting fire to buildings right before Halloween in Detroit. In the film we find out that Devil’s Night is far more organized than one might expect and that the criminal organization involved is sinister, ruthless and run by a sadist (actor: Michael Wincott) and his witchcraft dabbling sister (actress: Bai Ling).

The Crow did an amazing job of setting a mood and a feel, on in which Eric Draven’s tale for revenge seems not only plausible but righteous.  There’s a strange dark thread of hope throughout the story that promises that great pain will be met by great retribution, that even though evil may triumph in the short run, evil will never go unanswered. With powerful imagery, skillful pacing and one of the best soundtracks ever, this movie batters you down, but only to grant a better appreciation for the light from which you are taken and to which you’ll eventually be returned.

Fifteen years later, this movie hasn’t lost its impact and it’s message is still very accessible, understandable and relevant.

To be certain, The Crow has flaws, flaws which lie in two places: the compromises made in order to finish the film after Brandon’s death and a few places where points have to be hammered down to explain this grim yet fair world we’re watching. The former comes in the shape of early CGI, re-use of footage in a shot or two and actors that had to stand in and be shot from far enough away that we’re not supposed to be able to tell. The latter came in scenes where it seems like they wanted to just tell you the rules of the universe, but had to back off to avoid overdoing the prose.

Also, the original script called for some elements that didn’t survive to the theatrical cut: Eric’s guide is the crow that carried his soul back from the land of the dead to this Earth. As concieved, there was also the Skull Cowboy (voiced by Ron Perlman), a gruesome wraith that keeps Eric focused on revenge and tries to pull him away from some of the more benevolent uses he makes of his remaining time. The removal of the character leaves a couple of scenes feeling like there’s something missing and a few editing oddities, like Eric having electrical tape wrapped around his abdomen but no reason given for it’s appearance.

The last paragraph of a B+ Movie review customarily includes a rating. This one will not. If you’re asking why the cop out, it’s because I can’t remain objective where this movie is concerned. There are production  errors that would drop its grade but that I think the power of the storytelling more than corrects for. More than perhaps any other movie I’ve reviewed in this blog, I say go get a copy of The Crow and judge it for yourself.

Because for some movies, it doesn’t matter what a critic says. It matters what the movie says to you.

Brandon Lee
RIP

Trackback URI | Comments RSS