Review of The Crow: City of Angels (1996) by Mark N — 16 Apr 2012

For a sequel you can tell they really tired to make it work. Unfortunately they aped to many of the elements and called it style: A crow shaped muddy puddle is not as cool as one made of lighter fluid. It borrows so much it feels like an inept remake with the same basic characters and motivations, right down to an Asian mystic adviser.

Awkward crime/masturbation scenes, with predicable and off-screen outcomes, are uncomfortable to watch as they try to find ways to show why our bad guys deserve to die (apparently it's not enough that they are drug dealing murderers).

Perez struggles to deliver the profound lines with anything like passion and instead come off as sobbing rants. The makers don't even trust him enough to do a coin from behind the ear magic trick. The reasonable soundtrack still pales in comparison to the original.

Best bit: Ian Dury saying "Arse".