B Plus Movies

Sometimes, the ingredients don’t predict the soup that they make. You can take cheddar cheese, peanut butter, broccoli, flounder, cherries, and chicken broth and no matter how much you like them individually, the result of their mixture is probably not anything you’d like to consume. Sometimes, even taking a tried and true recipe (like say, lasanga) and tossing in an extra ingredient for variety (like say, squid ink) does nothing to improve it and everything to bring it down.

Sadly, the same can be said for some movies and specifically about The Crow: Wicked Prayer.

I gushed over The Crow on Monday and talked about it’s base premise, repeated in each of it’s sequels: A man is wronged and his loved ones dealt with by cruel men. The grave cannot hold his sorrow, so it spits him back forth with a black bird to guide him. His mission is simple: set the balances straight and gain revenge, but those who upset the balances in the first place have no problem making that a hard task.

The fact that three attempts have been made to recapture the raw power and pathos of the first is a testament to how well this formula works.  The Crow: Wicked Prayer promised, from it’s earliest rumors, to be faithful to this vision without simply re-doing the first one.  I had high hopes for this movie.

The cast includes Edward Furlong (of Terminator 2 and Detroit Rock City), Tara Reid (of American Pie and gossip magazines), David Boreanaz (of Angel and Bones) and even a cameo by Dennis Hopper (of…. do I have to tell you who Dennis Hopper is?). Furlong plays Jimmy Cuervo, an ex con trying to walk the straight and narrow. Boreanaz plays a Satanist who wants to sire the AntiChrist with the help of Reid and his three companions who have styled themselves after the four horseman of the apocalyse. To do this, the group tracks down Jimmy and takes his heart and his would-be fiance’s eyes.

Now the stage is set and we can begin the path of revenge. Unfortunately, this is where it all takes a bad turn.

The Crow: Wicked Prayer took passionate, dedicated actors,  well written dialogue and an engaging plot and somehow still missed the mark. Furlong’s character, post-mortem, is supposed to come across as out of sync and darkly alluring, but instead he just looks off balance and drugged. Boreanez does well as a villian up until he gets the power of Satan and his acting becomes a parody of past performances. Dennis Hopper didn’t just phone in his performance, he called collect to do it. The script developed plot holes that it doesn’t even bother to try to justify. They fall back on cliches, reinforcing that if you’re part of an ethnic minority group you must know all of your culture’s arcane rituals.

I don’t know if the movie got rushed at some point, if the editors were off their meds or if the director just wasn’t watching the playbacks but this movie squandered it’s potential. What could have been a solid reboot and an answer to the prayers of J. O’Barr’s fans was  reduced to a suggestion of what it could have been.

So not only seeing what it could have been on it’s own but knowing the standard The Crow: Wicked Prayer had to live up to, I can give it no better than a D in my scale. If you’re a fan of the series already, then check it out. If not, know that there are better movies based upon J. O’Barr’s The Crow. Unfortunately, unless the proposed reboot turns out to suck, there aren’t any that are worse.

Well, except for the movie Phoenix Rising. But that one was a porno.

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