Where to watch The Crow
4 Stars
A poetic guitarist Eric Draven is brought back to life by a crow a year after he and his fiancée are murdered. The crow guides him through the land of the living, and leads him to his killers: knife thrower Tin-tin, drugetic Funboy, car buff T-Bird, and the unsophisticated Skank. One by one, Eric gives these thugs a taste of their own medicine. However their leader Top-Dollar, a world-class crime lord who will dispatch his enemies with a Japanese sword and joke about it later, will soon learn the legend of the crow and the secret to the vigilante’s invincibility.
The Crow is a landmark achievement in many regards, but the film carries a morose weight given the tragic underpinnings of the behind-the-scenes death of the late Brandon Lee. However, the look, style, and energy are so sensational that the film leaps off the screen at times, engulfing the viewer in the filmmaker’s vision of a semi-futuristic and hellish society of psychopaths, impotent authority figures, and the stunning charisma of its star.
The Crow is a supernatural revenge thriller done with dazzling style and technique. The art direction is influenced by both Batman’s Gotham City and Blade Runner’s futuristic imagining of Los Angeles. Though this is a darker and far more menacing environment than either of those neighborhoods, The Crow is an inaugural step in the direction of what is now commonplace among comic-book movie adaptations. It is a highly stylized and brooding world, with an anti-hero as the protagonist and a supporting cast of decent people caught up in an unforgiving city. The atmospheric tone and visual style are similar to Rodriguez’s Sin City, and the theme of karmic justice for the truly evil is present in both films. The undeniable talent of Brandon Lee is the real reason to see this cult classic.
Directed by: Alex Proyas
Written by: James O’Barr, David J. Schow, John Shirley
Starring: Brandon Lee, Michael Wincott, Rochelle Davis