Feb 09 2009
B+ Movie Review: The Crow: Salvation
The death of a sequel is in its inability to bring anything new to the table. Sure, we want enough of whatever the original story was that we get the same feeling, the same magic and emotion brought on by that introductory tale, but we also want to see something else. Play it too close to the original and you risk boring the audience by taking them over well tread ground.
And fear of innovation is not anything I can pin on The Crow: Salvation.
The last movie to review in my four part retrospective of The Crow franchise, The Crow: Salvation had a lot going against it from the beginning. It would invariably be compared to The Crow and it would be hard to capture that depth of story again using the same plot. Also, critics were less than impressed with The Crow: City of Angels, so not only would be compared to a very well liked movie, but also a less than well liked movie.
Seemingly destined for failure, the movie failed to bring us back to where we started but it didn’t just stop and die either.
The Crow: Salvation begins with the classic formula that made us fall in love with the series. Take two lovers, add some tragedy and sprinkle with an unkillable thirst of for justice and once again, you get an undead vigilante in black and white makeup ready to pass out the butt kickings to all comers. In this case, we have Alex Corvis who was framed for the death of his lover and spots the killer (by way of a plot provided identifying mark) as one of the members of the gallery watching him be electrocuted. He comes back and along the way must not only find his killer but also look after his girlfriend’s sister, played by a pre-Spider-Man Kirsten Dunst.
What this movie does right is that it doesn’t directly try to be the first movie, just with a different actor in the lead. It plays with the plot devices, requiring Alex to believe in the purity of his mission and his own innocence to keep going. This adds a vulnerability and introspective twist to the character that means there’s a chance that the unstoppable can be stopped. This in turns builds tension and at least for me, made me engage the story and really wonder how the character was going to finish his quest.
The less than perfect parts of this tale are in its framing, like a complete lack of understanding about how electrocutions take place. Also, the acting by the main villain (played by Fred Ward) left just a bit to be desired. Despite it’s curves, there are few framed shots where it’s pretty obvious they were trying to copy scenes from The Crow. Not enough to make me get bored, but enough that I said to myself “yep, I guess it’s time for him to get shot by a line of guys in a bar”.
The Crow: Salvation was neither the best movie I’ve ever seen nor even the best comic book movie but it was the best of the three sequels, I felt. While this is faint praise, in the B+ rating system, this means that I give it a B. There will never be another movie, I fear, that will completely capture the magic of the first movie but if they keep making sequels, future filmmakers wishing to take up this tale would do well to look at the third installment and see exactly how much you can push the formula and still make a movie worthy of the pre colon title The Crow.
Good review. It’s been a long time since I have watched this film. I think I may have to rerent it. I’m not sure because if I remember correctly I found it very predictable and only watched it to see what kind of stunts were in it.