Review of The Crow (1994) by Gabbo P — 06 Jul 2015

The Crow was a comic book created by James O'Barr in 1989. With the comic book being an underground success, film producers saw great potential in it, and produced a film adaptation.

Brandon Lee, son of legendary Martial Artist and actor Bruce Lee, was cast in the lead role, and sadly, this would be the last film he ever made as he died from an accident that happened near the end of filming (inexperienced crew members loaded a real life bullet in a prop gun, which was what ultimately took Brandon's life). The few remaining scenes were completed using stunt doubles, and visual effects with leftover footage of Brandon inserted. The story behind Brandon's tragic death also helped attract moviegoers, and fans of the actor to see him one more time in film.

The Crow proved very successful, both critically and financially, and became the first successful R rated comic book movie, paving the way for similar dark comic book movies such as Sin City, and The Dark Knight.

There is a myth that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the realm of the dead, but sometimes, because of an event so traumatizing, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right. On October 30, Devil's Night, guitarist Eric Draven (played by Brandon Lee), and his fiancee Shelly Webster (played by Sofia Shinas) are murdered by a vicious gang of criminals. One year passes, and a mystical crow brings Eric back to life as an undead avenger to take out the ones who murdered both him, and Shelly.

I was already a huge fan of Bruce Lee, and was starting to get into his son Brandon Lee. Technically, the first movie I saw starring him was Showdown in Little Tokyo, but I was too young to remember. This was the movie that re-introduced me to Brandon, however, because I was too young, I didn't see the film until age 11, and when I did, I loved the movie, and to this day, it's one of my favorite movies of all-time.

The plot is very unique, and often has a strong sense of irony to it (seeing that in the movie, Brandon, whose life was ended during the making of the film, as mentioned before, is playing a man who dies, and ends up returning from the dead). Brandon Lee delivers an excellent performance as Eric Draven, he brings the tormented side of the character to life while offering a twisted sense of humor prior to sending off his murderers. The rest of the cast is also great, you have Ernie Hudson playing Albarecht, an officer who becomes an ally of Eric, and Michael Wincott as Top Dollar; the main villain, and the mastermind who orchestrated the murders of Eric and Shelly.

It's also noteworthy to talk about the visual design of the movie. The look is dark, and gives a very bleak and depressing atmosphere to the film, which works perfectly, unlike some modern comic book movies which try way too hard to be serious and realistic.

To add toppings to this wonderful film, the action scenes are well done, and the soundtrack rocks (one of the best movie soundtracks I have listened to, personally).

Because of the success of this movie, it was followed by 3 shitty, and unnecessary sequels, and a spin-off TV series starring Mark Dacascos as Eric Draven. There are plans to remake this movie too, however, this movie didn't need to spawn a franchise as I feel that not only was this a perfect movie, but also because it was pretty conclusive (I won't spoil the ending as I highly recommend this movie). Regardless of the unwanted franchise, this movie will always remain as one of the greatest comic book movies I have seen.