The mystical power that is the Crow returns once more, in this sequel to the Brandon Lee swan song THE CROW. Since the original was such a hit with the goth and fanboy crowds, Dimension of course decided that, 2 years later, it was FAR past time to make a sequel. And, as with many of the sequels that Dimension puts out (FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 2 instantly stampedes to mind), it was deffinately a fall back from the first installment. However, for those of you who hate this movie or will not spend the measily 85 minutes of required viewing time sinply because it doesn't star Brandon Lee, here's two things to remember. Brandon, along with his character, died during the first movie. You cannot bring back Eric Draven, as illustrated by the nightmare that is "The Crow: Stairway to Heaven", which is so bad that not even the WB will carry it. Besides, if you were to try to bring back Lee to the movie, he'd probably be a pretty unconvincing "hero back from the dead" character, seeing as how, well, HE CAN'T BE BROUGHT BACK FROM THE DEAD! That's more Herbert West's league... Also, the Crow is not a person, it's a force, an entity of revenge that gives itself flesh in the bodies of the people wronged in their lives, allowing them to return for some bloody penance. Eric Draven wasn't the first, and he's obviously not the last, so just get over this bullshit! I can understand people having a love for the original movie and distrust for a sequel, but it's not the same fucking movie and it's not a personal stab at Brandon Lee, so get over yourselves and just watch the video before I have to staple your eyelids open!!! Sorry about that kids, but people who follow this little philosophy piss me off beyond comprehension, and most of them are really starting to stink up my backyard with all their festering and decaying, so I'm more than a little tweaked at the moment. Not to worry though, as I will focus this energy into reviewing the movie instead of global holocaust like I had planned...

Our story takes place approximately 8 to 12 years following Eric Draven's bloodsoaked crusade of THE CROW. Young Sarah has grown up to be a twisted and VERY hot freak babe (Mia Kirshner), living and working in Los Angeles, the City of Angels, as a tattoo artist and piercer of various body parts. In her spare time she litters her meager little apartment with dark and gloomy goth decorations and whacked out paintings she creates herself. Two words though: Mia Kirshner is fuckin' GORGEOUS! Emphasis on the "fuckin"! Once again there's a big bad man casting his shadow, turning the "fair" city of LA into a wasteland of drugs and S+M. This bad man is Judah, a large ominous black dude who's got a real superiority complex. Judas also had the usual gang of weirdos and chess club drop-outs under his emmployment, including his blind oracle/lover Cybil (who pretty much relays the script to him) and several sexually confused metalheads, one of which is Curve: played by the world's oldest walking skeleont/heroin junkie, Iggy Pop! If he didn't have so many toxic substances in his system, he'd probably be rife with all kinds of old man diseases. Actually, it's the drugs' fault he looks that way, he's really 23... One victim of Judah's evil is Ashe, a single father of a young son. The two are dropped into the harbor near their home when Danny acted like a typically stupid young lad and witnessed a murder. Curve and his gang tied up the father and son, tying them to a makeshift anchor and dropping them into the murky waters to their certain demises. And that's the way it would've ended too, if Sarah and the Crow hadn't come to resurrect Ashe and guide him on the path to sweet sweet vengeance.

After informing Ashe as to the plot of the film (go out, kill the bad guys, avenge Danny's death), she paints up his face with some of Danny's fingerpaints, with the same Harleyquinn design her pal Eric utilized those oh so many years ago. Now the dreaded vigilante mime known as the Crow, Ashe decks himself out in the standard "anti-hero with a chip on his shoulder" outfit of a black leather trenchcoat before hopping his beaten up motorcycle and riding off to kick some ass! His first victim goes up in an explosion, leaving behind the standard Crow symbol. Whereas the original used blood and flames to create the symbols, CITY OF ANGELS (no, not the horrors of Nicholas Cage) tries to variate on the subject. For instance, after this first killing, the symbol is created with a large pile of glass shards and later on, after the death of another character, the symbol is outlined using flowers thrown into a pool of water in which the guy dies. Now, whether or not this is the work of Ashe is unsure, but if it is, then I say to Ashe, "Enough with the arts and crafts! Get off your ass and get back to the murder and revenge!". But, my guess on the whole situation is that the designs are simpley a side effect of the Crow magic. You know, like massive bodily scarring is the after effect of fire or a bullet leaves a massive exit wound. It's all just part of the killing.

Ashe's next victim suffers from a cheap shot, as Ashe attacks him while he's floggin' Flipper. It's gotta be heartattack inducing to be stroking Mr. Happy one minute, then open your eyes to find a weirdo in a belly-shirt and facepaint staring back at you from behind the plexi-glass, especially a guy you'd killed recently! Well, the punk obviously finds out that Ashe isn't auditioning for a job when the undead mofo leaps through the glass and proceeds to kick ass. Heh heh, I made a rhyme! After wasting this guy, Judah and his posse snatch up Sarah, thanx to Cybil, whose extrasensory visions allowed her to discover Ashe's weakness and new friend. When Ashe returns to Sarah's apartment, he bumps into another of Judah's people, this one a kung-fu bitch, who spars with Ashe a while before he tosses her Shao-Lin style out a window. This is one of the film's better action sequences, as it includes a cool (yet obviously painful) throwing star trick from Ashe. As for the rest of Judah's thrall, well, it's amazing that they ever get ANYTHING done, as it appears they do nothing but sit around snorting black coke and engaging in fetish lovin' all day. During one such session, Ashe seeks out Curve. The two trade gunshots and Ashe then has to chase the uncooperative thug through the LA streets on motorcycle, which ends very unfavorably for Curve, unless of course his lifelong dream has been to die in a motorcycle accident, face down in murky water and surrounded by flowers (refer to the earlier segment of the review)... I know that's how I always wanted to go out.

Having killed Iggy Pop, our hero in black heads off to Judah's base of operations, "the Tower" (No! Bad memories of Paul Reiser!). While Ashe wades through the Day of the Dead street party at the Tower's base, Judah and Cybil capture Ashe's winged power source, which has come in search of Sarah. Pinning the bird to some crazy ass globe, Judah kills it, drinking it's blood and stealing Ashe's power, turning him mortal once more while Judah becomes invincible. This is realyl bad, because when he pulled this dirty trick, our pal Ashe gets fucked over big time, losing it while scaling the side of the Tower. This forces him to let go and fall several stories straight down, right through a Deftones concert (who, by the way, look REALLY outta place in their Adidas get-ups amongst a sea of people in Mexican clothing and obscure Halloween costumes). Judah arrives on the scene to finish off the good guy in a display of power to his people. The fight is completely one-sided, as Ashe is battered and beaten, bleeding everywhere and limp as an old man's dick, pre-Viagra. As for Sarah, well, Judah fatally wounds her, so she's not gonna be pulling off any cavalry moves for the screwed Ashe. His only hope lies in the flock of Crows that seem to have magically appeared, circling above the Tower. Seems that when you try to steal a Crow's power, all the other Crows get pissed, much like an Italian family, i.e. "mob". So, the Crow-atelli family swoops down on Judah, passing through him and picking him apart, taking back the powers he stole and saving Ashe's sorry ass in time for him to hold Sarah in her last moments on Earth. Presumably, she actually becomes one of the guiding birds when she dies. As for Ashe, well, despite his job being finished and his ass being kicked, he hops his motor-bike and drives off into the sickly yellow lights. More than likely, Dimension was hoping to spawn a series from this movie, following the further adventures of Ashe in his crusade against evil, probably to be led by the squaking Sarah in her new flesh... and feathers. But, the movie wasn't accepted as the producers had hoped, and that idea (provided it was ever considered and I'm not just living in my own world... well, a world different than the one I'm usually in dduring my comas) was killed, just like Brandon Lee... yeah, sucker shot that people will hate me for, but considering this IS a CROW movie, that analogy just popped into mind... hey, I am Death and Death is funny.

For the most part, this wasn't nearly as bad as many people thought. The acting was bad for the most part, especially the two heavies, Ashe and Judah. Vincent Perez and Richard Brooks (not to be confused with Richard Brooker) really show NO talent, especially in voice acting, as Perez was nearly indecypherable half the time! I wouldn't call it delivering his lines, but more like mumbling them. But, to make up for our leads, the supporting cast worked much better, most notably Mia Kirshner and Iggy Pop. Yes, Iggy Pop is a pathetic drugged out rock and roll wasteland, but that's exactly what Curve was! People do their best acting when they don't need to act at all... The action sequences went over well, though not living up to the standards set by the first film. One thing that really burrowed under my skin and laid eggs, was the use of color in the movie. At first it seems that director Tim Pope is trying to pull a "Great Gatsby", using different colors to denote different moods and emotional environments, such as yellow for corruption, green for greed, red for passion, etc. The use of yellow lighting on this film gave us the feel that everything was corrupt... until we realized that EVERYTHING WAS YELLOW AND THERE WERE NO OTHER COLORS! In a social commentary kind of way that would work, but in a visual and directorial way, well, let's just say that scarabs in my lungs would've made me happier. Yes, there's this whole nightmare kind of mood, but too much yellow overloads my cerebral cortex and causes me to see visions of Gary Coleman rough ridings on John Ritter's eager anus, and these are NOT good things to fool my brain into thinking. In other words Pope, you go from wanna-be rip-off genius to blatant pain-in-the-ass in 2.5 seconds, three times faster than even Eminem... congratualtions.

In addition to these problems, CITY OF ANGELS also suffers from two more things that worked for THE CROW, but not here. In THE CROW, everything had this slicked back look. It was constantly raining in the city, giving everything and everyone a whole new appearance. In LA though, I guess it doesn't rain much, as the whole film had a much drier look to it. This provides it's own charm, but combined with all that amber highlighting, it doesn't come close. Also, the difference in reason for Ashe's ressurection as opposed to Eric's. Eric Draven (the first Crow) was brought back from death to avenge the unjust killing of the object of his heart's desire: his girlfriend Shelley. This is a concept that lots of tortured teens could relate to, because as fluffy and faggy as it may sound to some, we all fall for someone at one point in our lives. This person that we'd do anything for, including give up our entire lives if it would provide them salvation. I myself know. Just ask my object of desire, Krissy. But, Ashe came back to avenge the death of his young son. Not many (or atleast not enough) of us can relate to something like that, since few of us have children, let alone children we stick around to take care of. This really alienates from Ashe, dooming the sympathy angle from the start. Despite the failure of THE CROW: CITY OF ANGELS, Dimension tried it once more with THE CROW: SALVATION, which, well, sucked... HARD! There is still talk of other Crow projects sitting around, waiting to see the light of day, but after CITY OF ANGELS and SLAVATION, don't look for them to hit the big screen anytime in your paltry existence. All in all, I stand by CITY OF ANGELS simply because I feel it was unfairly executed by many before it even got it's trial. Just because it doesn't have Brandon Lee in it is no reason not to like a movie. Hell, if that was the way the American Film Institute worked, it wouldn't be CITIZEN KANE at the top of their list, it'd be RAPID FIRE! And the list wouldn't be 100 movies long, just 4! Yeah, I bet all you people who follow the "it doesn't have Lee in it, so I won't watch it" ideology out there are probably getting very frustrated with me at this point, because I'm proving you all wrong AND ignorant, but hey, look at it this way, atleast the review's over now and you don't have to listen to it anymore...

Sequels: THE CROW: SALVATION

If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: BATMAN or THE TERMINATOR