Remember the sadness when a freak accident killed actor Brandon Lee? Naturally when that movie hit the theaters, the droves of somber fans (who previously couldn't name another Lee movie) went to see it just for Brandon?
The Crow, which before Lee's death was destined to be a B-movie that by 1996 would have been long forgotten, instead went on the course to a quickie sequel. The Crow: City of Angels has hit theaters, but this bird just doesn't fly.
In the process of using the age-old technique of stealing the first movie's plot, the movie's writers have sinned. By cutting The Crow 's already bad dialogue down to the worst 10 percent, what is left stinks. The producers have shlocked us up eighty minutes of a poor excuse for a movie.
I say the dialogue stinks for a good reason. The writing was so bad, it resorts to recycling lines from Rambo movies.
Rambo: "I'm your worst nightmare."
Crow 2: "I'm all your worst nightmares."
Vincent Perez plays Ashe Corven, who, after he and his son witness a murder, takes a few bullets and plunges off a Los Angeles dock. One year later, still down there and strapped to his son, who miraculously hasn't suffered from the corpse's fine tradition of decomposing, he awakens to a crow who gives him immortality to take revenge on the thugs who killed him.
Enter Iggy Pop as Curve, the only developed character in the movie. Too many minutes of this all-too-short-yet-all-too-long movie are wasted watching Curve in his nasty exploits, during which the viewer is amazed that modern cinema could conceive of such a creep. But, when the most developed character does indeed kick the bucket, the plot dies with him.
Sure, the little girl from the first movie grows up to be a tattooed movie babe (Mia Kirshner), but she's a worthless element in the plot. This single link to the first movie doesn't do anything to help Ashe. She merely prompts him into doing what he would've done anyway.
Too many times Hollywood cashes in on the success of a good movie with a really bad sequel. If you liked The Crow, boycott City of Angels . Wait until the sequel hits the dollar bin at your video store before seeing this sham.
I'll wager it'll be there soon.