The Crow

After being killed (along with his girlfriend) on the night of their wedding, Eric Draven gets to come back to life with the help of a crow, gets a new wardrobe, paints himself up a like the mime from hell and sets off to kill those responsible for his girlfriend's death. Lots of people die in dingy locations a a result, but they all deserve it. Honest.

Eric Draven (Brandon Lee)
Sarah (Rochelle Davis)
Sergeant Albrecht (Ernie Hudson)
Top Dollar aka Boss Evil (Michael Wincott)
Myca aka Evil Mystic Woman (Ling Bai)
Shelly Webster (Sofia Shinas)
Darla (Anna Thomson)
T-Bird (David Patrick Kelly)
Skank (Angel David)
Tin Tin (Laurence Mason)
Funboy (Michael Massee)
Grange aka Well-Dressed Evil Man (Tony Todd)
Gideon (Jon Polito)
Detecitve Torres aka World's Angriest Detective (Marco Rodríguez)

Year: 1994
Censorship Rating: MA15+ (lots of violence, swearing, drug use, sexual references, the dead coming back to life and other stuff that destroys fragile young minds)

"The Crow" is one of the most infamous comic book movies ever filmed: firstly, it is an unashamedly dark revenge fantasy, and secondly, the lead actor, Brandon Lee, was killed during filming. The movie was finally completed using a re-cut story and CGI-stand-ins for Lee, with the director coming close to abandoning the entire project. Despite these barriers, "The Crow" is also one of the best comic book movies you are likely to find, creating a tone and atmosphere that has been copied since but rarely, if ever, equalled.

In case you hadn't guessed yet, I'm an unabashed fan of this film. It's not perfect, but it certainly does a lot right. It's not to everyones' taste - I don't think the person who wrote the text on the back of the DVD liked the film, saying it had "mind-numbing effects" (not a compliment in my book), had a "dark, cyberpunk setting" (where's the cyberpunk in "The Crow"?) and was a "pulsating and hypnotic fantasy that will leave you gasping" (again, not really a compliment) - but if you are in a mood for a darker take on superpowers, it's hard to find a better one.

We open to a city on fire - it's October 30, Devil's Night (well, according to the on-screen caption anyway). Our point-of-view (POV) sweeps over the city while a girl narrates about how if a soul can't rest "sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right". The POV focuses in on a cop in a high-up broken window. He looks down on all the sirens and people that surround a body below. In the apartment paramedics work on an injured woman while other cops look over the crimescene. Our main cop finds a wedding invite - Eric Draven (the body on the bottom floor) and Shelly Webster (the injured woman) were to be married the following night. The main cop authorises the woman to be taken to hospital, with conversation letting us know that Devil's Night is stretching police resources with "143 fires" set already.

[Aside: This film is lousy with names. Several characters have a couple of scenes before we even find out their names, while some other characters go the entire film without names! As such, I'll name characters when they appear, but if you think you'll easily be able to find out when watching the movie, for instance, that our main cop's name is Albrecht, you'll be kidding yourself.]

Outside, the World's Angriest Detective [who's real name is Torres, but good luck in finding that out during the film's running time] chews out Albrecht for moving the girl with his approval [because if she died at the scene it'd be so much better, wouldn't it?]. A crow watches on.

A girl on a skateboard (named Sarah) shows up who knows the couple. Sarah is pretty shattered by the death of Eric and appearance of the injured Shelley and ends up hugging Albrecht for comfort.

One year later... a sweeping view of a gothic church and we get to see Sarah leave flowers on the graves of Eric and Shelley. A crow lands on Eric's headstone and starts pecking at it; Sarah skates off as it begins to rain [which, I should note, happens all the time - Detroit must be the wettest city in the world outside of Venice]. At a dingy fast food place called Maxi Dogs, Albrecht has a hot dog. Sarah shows up there and has one too [riveting stuff, I assure you].

Inside an arcade games place, four guys go around smashing things, then plant a bomb.

In the cemetary, Eric digs himself out of his coffin, looking physically none-the-worse for 12 months underground. He's pretty cold and disorientated, stumbling around in the rain and fishing some boots out of a dumpster. He follows the crow who was on his gravestone.

Our arcade-smashing bad guys drive past Maxi Dogs in a T-Bird just as their bomb goes off. Albrecht sets off to investigate the explosion.

The crow leads Eric back to his apartment (which is virtually untouched from a year ago). Eric sees his cat and picks her up; this triggers a psychic flashback to last year's events - Shelley's rape and his murder [and for the morbidly curious, it was during the shooting of this scene that Brandon Lee was accidently shot and killed... not this footage though - the footage of his death was destroyed without being developed]. At the end of this flashback, Eric injures his hands on some glass and gets to find out he now has near instanteous regeneration / healing.

At a dingy bar [although perhaps 'dingy' is a bit redundent, since EVERYTHING in this city is dingy], the bad guys show how tough they are by swallowing bullets with their liquor [although I say that if you need gunpowder to make your alcohol taste better, then buy some better alcohol]. These guys get into a tiff and then mexican standoff with weapons at each other's head / throats... but end up remaining friends [Awwww...].

Back at the apartment, Eric has some psychic flashbacks of the good times that he and Shelley had. He puts on some black and white evil clown-eque makeup and suitably black clothes before posing with his crow in the window.

[Aside: I liked the "good times" flashbacks that Eric has here about his life - you actually got some idea that the couple loved each other and that his revenge for losing their potential life together is justified. Some movies are a lot more clumsy about doing the before-and-after motivation for a character to go off on a revenge-driven killing spree, but I think "The Crow" gets it just right.]

Shift to Gideon's Pawn Shop, where Tin Tin (one of our bad guys who has a thing for knives, not the french boy reporter) is selling his ill-gotten loot to Gideon for not a lot of money. The crow leads Eric on a rooftop run to meet Tin Tin (with the crow giving Eric a black and white crow's eye view of the world). After Tin Tin leaves Gideon's, Eric runs into him and they fight. Tin Tin comes out the worst in round 1 - Eric makes Tin Tin talk about his and Shelley's murder. Eric gets distracted by the detail of the discussion, leading to Tin Tin beating on him with an iron bar and starting off round 2.

Tin Tin preps up to finish Eric off - "let me tell you all about murder; it's fun and it's easy" and "I'd like you to meet two buddies of mine - we never miss" - but Tin Tin does miss and quickly ends up on the wrong end of his own knives. Eric moves in - "Victims... aren't we all?" - and things end badly for Tin Tin.

At a dingy club (which has a picture of Eric's band Hangman's Joke hanging on the wall) the bad guys go up to their headquarters to report the destruction of the gaming arcade. A well dressed black man [who is called Grange in the credits but doesn't, to my knowledge, actually get called that in the movie - as such I'm going to call him Well Dressed Evil Man, or WDEM for short; he serves as head henchman / evil personal assistant] takes the report, but the big boss is in a "meeting". This "meeting" is actually a display of debauchery with Boss Evil and his sister Evil Mystic Woman having "broken" a girl during sex. [Okay, Boss Evil is called Top Dollar and Evil Mystic Woman is called Myca in the credits, but again, no one in the film actually uses these names. As such, neither shall I.]

Sarah shows up at the dingy bar and gets money off Darla, the waitress who works there and who is also a girlfriend to one of the bad guys.

In his store, Gideon counts his money. Eric pays him a visit. Gideon, being the unpleasant chap he is, shoots Eric and is terrifed to see the bullet holes in Eric's chest heal up. Eric roughs Gideon up a bit (well, a lot, actually) before looking for Shelley's engagement ring which had been pawned at the store by Tin Tin.

The cops pull Tin Tin's corpse out of an alley - he's had a lot of knives stuck in him. The World's Angriest Detective and Albrecht exchange banter to show how much they don't like each other. A large crow outline has been painted in blood on the ally wall.

Eric trashes the pawn shop a bit and has a psychic flashback when he finds the right ring. He breaks a few more things and gets Gideon to tell him where "Tin Tin's party pals" hang out. Spilling gasoline and smashing glass, Eric tells Gideon to warn the others that "death is coming for them - tonight". Eric takes a shotgun and an electric guitar with him [and the guitar twangs, which stands out as wrong since Gideon wouldn't have the thing plugged in an wasting power] as he leaves - "is that gasoline I smell?" - before blowing up the store with the shotgun. Gideon barely makes it out alive. [Judging by the explosion, people have pawned a lot of volatile explosives at Gideon's.]

Back at the dingy bar, Sarah watchs Darla (who turns out ot be her mother) go upstairs with her bad guy boyfriend.

[Aside: For the record, "Tin Tin's party pals" are Funboy, Skank and T-Bird. Since you generally only learn their names right before or after they die, it can make it hard to identify them. I'm just going to start using these names regardless of when the movie actually uses them - Darla's boyfriend is Funboy.]

In front of the smoking remains of Gideon's Pawn Shop, Albrecht stops Eric, doesn't recognise him from 12 months before and holds him at gunpoint. Eric states he's out to get those who murdered Shelley and him - "They're all dead, they just don't know it yet". Looters [including The Crow's creator James O'Barr] distract Albrecht and Eric escapes.

[Aside: It's not explained in the movie, but it appears that Eric has some sort of teleportation power - he just disappears at times to reappear short distances away. In most movies, this unexplained power would just look like a cheap trick so that the writer doesn't have to explain how Eric gets out of a few situations, but I think it works here and adds to Eric's mystique.]

Cut to bad guy headquarters. Boss Evil and Evil Mystic Woman [who's Asian, so gets to sprout dialogue about "energies aligning against you" and the like] get into more wickedness involving a mound of cocaine and a burning human eyeball. T-Bird and WDEM show up to deliver the news about Gideon's Pawn Shop and Tin Tin [who apparently died when Eric "stuck his blades in all his major organs in alphabetical order", which makes no sense because 1) no-one else was there to see the order the blades were used on Tin Tin, and 2) I don't think you'd get much further than 'b' for 'brain', do you?].

More sweeping POV shots of the eternally rained-on city. Sarah sets off from the dingy bar without looking left, looking right before crossing the road. Eric saves her from being run over by a taxi. She is more interested on getting her skateboard back, but recognises Eric from something he says. However, when she turns around, he's gone.

At the polic station, Albrecht looks over Eric and Shelley's file.

In a dingy hotel room. Funboy and Darla shoot up some heroin. The crow shows up, followed shortly be Eric. After a bit of banter, Funboy shoots Eric through the hand, but is shocked (along with Darla) to see the hole close over [obvious animatronic hand here, for what it's worth]. Eric catches a few more rounds from Funboy, but ends up causing Funboy to shoot himself in the leg. [Also, no reaction from anyone outside at the gunshots - it's nice to know that in this particular hotel, your privacy is assured.] Darla had locked herself in the bathroom, but Eric forces his way in dragging Funboy. While having psychic flashbacks of Funboy's rape of Shelley, Eric dumps Funboy in the bathtub and gives him a cold shower. Grabbing Darla, he drags her to the mirror and makes her watch as he magically expels the heroin from her needlemarks [meet the Crow! He's an undead avenger! He's a rehab program! He's a social councillor! And ladies - he's currently single!]. Darla takes one last look at Funboy and leaves the room without putting on any extra clothes.

Gideon is drinking in the dingy bar and is told by WDEM to come to bad guy headquarters. Darla runs out from Funboy's room in just a teddie and leaves the bar a bit upset; WDEM goes to investigate.

The shower has woken up Funboy. Eric drags him back into the dingy bedroom and injects several needles into Funboy's chest (Funboy: "You're wasting it!"). WDEM arrives in time to see Eric drop out of the window and to see Funboy die. Funboy also has an outline of a crow painted in blood on his chest.

Albrecht is at home (wearing only his police hat and underclothes) going through Eric and Shelley's file. Eric pops in and scares Albrecht [yeah, if a dead man popped into my house to say hi, I think I'd be a bit surprised too] - he wants to hear all about the murders from Albrecht. Apparrently Shelley held on for 30 hours in intensive care before dying. Eric touches Albrecht's head and gets psychic visions of Shelley's time before death. Albrecht also reveals that after their murders, no-one would help the investigation and Albrecht got demoted for pursuing it. Eric leaves.

Gideon reveals what happened at the shop to Boss Evil and Mystic Evil Woman, but is rude about it until Boss Evil holds a sword to his throat. After getting the info, Boss Evil thanks Gideon by stabbing him through the throat and then shooting him [and the moral here is be polite to criminal sociopaths]. WDEM arrives and reveals what he saw at Funboy's.

Eric plays some electric guitar chords on a rooftop. [I'm guessing that electric guitars and rain go really well together then.]

At her home, Sarah digs out her Hangman's Joke (ie Eric's band) vinyl album. The crow shows up on her window for a second and the record skips to a line that lets her know that Eric has returned.

The crow watches as T-Bird and Skank wander down the street. Skank goes into a convenience store to get "smokes and road beers" while T-Bird waits in his T-Bird. Eric surprises T-Bird from the back seat and orders him to drive off. Skank sees this happen and tries to give chase on foot, but quickly gets hit by another car. The driver gets out of the car to lay into Skank (and calls him "stupid asshair" which is one of the greatest insults I've ever heard), but Skank takes him out and steals the car that hit him. He sets off in pursuit of T-Bird and Eric.

Eric encourages T-Bird to drive "faster", which attracts the cops. After a bit of a chase, Skank manages to accidently crash into and block the police cars, so T-Bird gets away.

On the dock, Eric ties T-Bird into his T-Bird with the materials from the car's trunk. In his last few moments, T-Bird recognises Eric, but has a hard time dealing with it since "there ain't no coming back!". Eric drops a grenade in the T-Bird and sets it to drive off the pier. Skank shows up just in time to see the T-Bird as it explodes over the water.

[Aside: So, did the cops just let Skank off with a warning for his dangerous driving, crashing into them and stopping a high speed pursuit? What nice guys they must have been!]

Eric uses some lighter fluid and a lighter [what didn't T-Bird have back there in his trunk?] to leave a big burning outline of a crow on the dock.

The next day, WDEM finds Eric's grave has been disturbed and that the coffin is empty.

Sarah wakes up to find Darla making her eggs for breakfast. After some initial confusion from Sarah about why Darla is acting all "mother of the year", mother and daughter bond. [Awwww...]

Albrecht arrives at work and gets called in to see the World's Angriest Detective. Detective Angry wants to know information about T-Bird's death as well as what Albrecht knows about what is going on. Albrecht won't tell, acting flippant about the who situation. The World's Angriest Detective gets angry and tells Albrecht that he's suspended for "misconduct".

Sarah goes back to Eric and Shelley's apartment (where Eric is burning photos and letters while getting psychic flashbacks from them). Sarah finds a cat and a smoking fireplace [which should be smoking more, given was there only seconds ago], but no Eric. Irritated, Sarah goes to leave, but Eric appears in a sunlit pose in front of the window. They hug. [Awwww....]

Skank recounts in double speed what happened to T-Bird in front of the main bad guys. After getting an inkling about what is going on, Skank gets frightened that "this ghost gonna kill my ass next" and gets bitch-slapped by Boss Evil for his troubles.

Sarah and Albrecht meet at Maxi Dogs to discuss Eric in a very indirect way.

Eric (well, his silhouette, since all this is shot from behind) wails on his guitar on the rooftop before smashing it.

The dingy club is packed downstairs, while upstairs a big group of bad guys have a meeting to discuss some evildoing. Boss Evil gets to monologue about Devil's Night - "Greed is for amateurs; disorder, chaos, anarchy... now that's fun!" - and wants to see a dramatic increase in the number of fires set this year. The crow lands on the table, interrupting things, with Eric not too far behind. Eric just wants Skank, but Boss Evil isn't going to hand him over. Top Dollar gives the order and Eric catch a lot a bullets. After some premature backslapping, the bad guys find out that Eric is pretty bullet resistant. Much violence and death of bad guys ensues. Boss Evil, Mystic Evil Woman and WDEM escape; Skank tries to hide, but gets caught by Eric in the end and thrown out a window.

[Aside: This is one of my favourite fights sequences in a superhero / comics movie. It's one guy against a lot of enemies, hasn't been choreographed to an inch of its life and is quite grim and gritty in its execution. Sure, it's not perfect - given the amount of bullets in the air, you'd expect a lot more windows to be shot out - but it's a sequence where the protagonist is up against a lot of men with guns and gets shot quite a few times instead of dodging the bullets. Unfortunately for them, he just keeps going...]

The cops show up in record time (ie just in time for Skank to land on a cop car) and pursue Eric as he tries to escape. The police helicopter follows him over the rooftops. Albrecht manages Eric by driving him away from the scene, but as soon as Albrecht stops Eric runs away.

The remaining bad guys discuss their next move on the road. Thanks to the input of Mystical Evil Woman, they decide to "kill the crow, destroy the man".

Eric, looking like a mime who's got into a bar fight [which, I suppose, he had] thanks to the blood on his make-up, goes back to Shelley's grave and finds Sarah asleep on it. Eric and Sarah say their sort-of goodbyes, with Sarah receiving Shelley's engagement ring from Eric. Sarah leaves the cemetary... and immediately gets grabbed by WDEM and taken into the nearby gothic-but-still-dingy church. The bad guys menace her and take the ring.Eric sits with a flower on Shelley's grave until the crow alerts him to Sarah's plight. On this cue, it starts to pour with rain [which makes me wonder how the heck arson is a major problem on Devil's Night given the amount of water that falls from the sky in this city. There'd be nothing left dry enough to burn!]. Eric heads into the church.

On entry, WDEM shoots and wounds the crow. Eric threatens Boss Evil (who has brought guns and a katana with him) but finds out he isn't that invulnerable any more after being shot. Things look grim for Eric, but Albrecht shows up just in time. During the ensuing gun fight, WDEM gets killed by Albrecht, Mystical Evil Woman grabs the wounded crow and both she and Boss Evil head upstairs.

Eric and Albrecht team up and head after them, but after one flight of stairs Albrecht gets shot and wounded by Mystical Evil Woman. Eric continues alone up to Mystical Evil Woman, who decides to monologue a bit before shooting Eric. The crow attacks her, pecking her eyes out and she falls over the balcony to her death.

[Aside: Another case of the Rule of Feminine Inferiority at play here. Every other bad guy dies at the hands of an undead avenger who regenerates quickly from physical damage. The evil woman gets killed by a bird instead . I guess the director only wanted Eric to beat the snot out of men.]

Boss Evil waits for Eric outside on top of a slippery roof with Sarah as bait. Because he's evil, he pushes Sarah off the roof so she's hanging onto the tiles before attacking Eric with his katana.

They fight - Eric pulls out a metal spire to use as his 'sword' (and at the same time he grabs it, it gets struck by lightning - that's gotta sting a bit!), but Boss Evil has most of the advantages. Sarah dangles precariously and distracts Eric, allowing Boss Evil to stab him in the back. Admiring his handiwork, Boss Evil monologues takes the credit for authorising what happened to Eric and Shelley "but if it is any consolation to ya, you have put a smile on my face". Eric says he's got something for Boss Evil and grabs his face - it's the "three hours of pain" Shelley suffered in Emergency, "all at once, all for you". Boss Evil is overcome by this and falls off the roof and onto a very spikey gargoyle. Eric saves Sarah.

Eric, Sarah and Albrecht meet up downstairs. With police sirens in the background [let's assume Albrecht called them, although he doesn't mention it], Eric leaves them and returns to Shelly's grave.

Albrecht gets wheeled out to an ambulance and gets to taunt the World's Angriest Detective on the way.

In the cemetary, a radiant Shelley comes to [a literally smoking - boy, it must have been cold!] Eric and both graves magically reset themselves into immaculate condition. The crow drops Shelley's ring back to Sarah.

A final PoV shot has the crow flying over the city as Sarah narrates that "buildings burn, people die, but real love is forever." [Awww.... ]

Although not perfect and not especially deep, "The Crow" sets out to create a dark revenge fantasy and succeeds admirably. The film is just dripping in style and atmosphere, while the pace of the movie is fast enough that it manages to keep the audiences from looking too deeply at the weaknesses.

Another big strength of "The Crow" is Brandon Lee. He's very believable as both the nice guy who was going to marry Shelley and as the tortured soul who is given the ability to seek revenge on those responsible for his and Shelley's murder. It would seem to be a hard thing to pull off, but Lee does it with a rare charisma - he is actually likeable as an undead avenger. It is truly a tragedy that he was killed during filming of "The Crow", because this performance would have shot him straight into the spotlight and onto a bigger, brighter future.

Indeed, one wonders what "The Crow" would have looked like if Lee hadn't died during shooting. His death almost caused the whole project to be cancelled, with some re-writing occurring to help increase running time by giving more attention to other characters. Having more attention on some of the minor characters does help "The Crow" surpass other revenge fantasy movies since attention isn't always focussed on the protagonist, but would it have made the film better? Worse? Guess we'll never know. What was created was a great movie and I'm glad it was completed and released to show the world just how good Lee was in this role.

In my time, I've met some people who hate "The Crow". They see it as having no substance, of being all faux grime and pretend darkness and just being plain nasty to boot. I know where they are coming from, but can't agree. It is not a deep film, but then, no revenge fantasy really is. The film is very stylised, but in my mind that just helps to establish the strong atmosphere of the movie and is a huge plus for director Alex Proyas (who went on to direct the very good "Dark City" using some of the same sets). As for the nastiness... yes, their are some very nasty things in this movie. But there has to be. What happened to Eric and Shelley has to be bad enough for us to accept Eric coming back to return the favour. In my opinion, the film does very well to still keep Eric as a sympathetic character even as he kills for revenge - again, no small part of this is thanks to Lee.

Yes, there are some weaknesses - calling the main character in "The Crow" Eric Draven always gets to me (how about Eric Blackbird? Eric Rook? Eric Magpie? Yeah, because that would be stupid!) and there is a lot of plot conveniences when required (eg Skank crashes and blocks the cop cars, but gets away despite being heavily injured) - but they aren't enough to even scratch the stylistic veneer that surrounds this film. This film is one of the few cases where style over substance works and creates a great film.

Sadly, this quality wasn't carried over to some of the films that served as sequels to "The Crow". I'll get to them in time.

Having read the original The Crow miniseries, I can say that the film sticks very closely to the style and atmosphere generated by the comic. The changes that occurred mainly saw the metaphysical material that appears in the comic ditched - Eric sees visions and portents of the horror that happened to him and Shelley while the crow talks to him in the comic. Small things, like the circumstances of their death (occuring after their car breaks down in the comic verus at their apartment in the movie), the number of bad guys (going from a gang of low-level scum in the comic to a small group of bad guys headed by a big boss) and some characters get renamed or merged. All in all though, the overall weltanschuung (hooray for big words!) is very similar between comic and screen.

One of the best comic-inspired revenge fantasies that you are every likely to see. Lots of quotable dialogue, some very memorable scenes, great music - it's a rare case of style over substance that leads to a great film.

It's not perfect - Skank's ability to ram a police car, then hobble off unhindered to the docks just in time to see T-Bird's T-Bird explode in a blaze of glory, for instance - but it's not too bad overall.

Date of review: 19 January 2006