The mystical power that is the Crow returns once more in this sequel to the Brandon Lee death march The Crow. Since the original was such a hit with the Goth and fan boy crowds, Dimension of course decided that, only 2 years later it, was FAR past time to make a sequel. Of course, as with many of the sequels that Dimension puts out (From Dusk Till Dawn 2 instantly stampedes to mind), it was definitely a fall back in quality from the first installment. However, for those of you who hate this movie or will not spend the measly 85 minutes of required viewing time simply because it doesn't star Brandon Lee, here are two things to remember: Brandon (along with his character) died during the first movie. You cannot bring back Eric Draven, as illustrated by the televised bladder infection 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 many of them are really starting to stink up my backyard with all the festering and decaying that comes with getting corpsed up, 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 blood soaked crusade of The Crow. Young Sarah has grown up to be a twisted and VERY hot freak babe (Mia Kirshner, meow), living and working in Los Angeles (our titular 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’"! As with Top Dollar before him, once again there's a big bad man casting his proverbial 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. Judah also has the usual gang of weirdoes and chess club drop-outs under his employment, including his blind oracle/lover Cybil (who pretty much relays the script to him) and several sexually confused metal heads, one of which is Curve: played by the world's oldest walking skeleton/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, the 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 two, fastening 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 decorates his face with some of Danny's finger paints, falling back on the same Harlequin 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 your basic "anti-hero with a chip on his shoulder" 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 a little variety 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 purely 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 heart attack inducing to be stroking Mr. Happy Shaft one minute, then open your eyes to find a weirdo in a belly-shirt and face paint staring back at you from behind the plexiglass, especially a guy you'd killed recently! Well, the punk obviously finds out that Ashe isn't auditioning for a job (like that? It’s one of them there classy “double-entendres”) when the undead mofo leaps through the glass and proceeds to kick ass. Heh heh, I made a rhyme! After Ashe wastes 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 Shaolin style in a move the monks call “Ouda Fukyn Wyndo”. 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 (Mr. Pop). 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 now killed Iggy Pop, our hero in black makes for 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 its blood and stealing Ashe's power, turning him mortal once more while Judah becomes invincible. This is really 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 squawking 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 during 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 wasn’t exactly “good” for the most part, especially the two heavies, Ashe and Judah. Vincent Perez and Richard Brooks (not to be confused with Friday the 13th Part 3-D’s Richard Brooker) really show NO talent, especially in voice acting, as Perez’s delivery was pretty much indecipherable half the time! I wouldn't say he was delivering his lines so much as mumbling them to be honest. 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 “nightmarish” kind of mood, but too much yellow overloads my cerebral cortex and causes me to see visions of Gary Coleman rough riding 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... congratulations.
In addition to these problems, City of Angels also suffers from two more things that actually worked for The Crow, but serve to instead hinder 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 its own charm, but combined with all that amber highlighting, it doesn't come close. Also, the difference in reason for Ashe's resurrection 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 at least 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 somewhat alienates the target audience from Ashe, dooming the sympathy angle from the start.
Despite the failure of this movie, Dimension tried it once more with The Crow: Salvation, which, well, sucked. There is still talk of other Crow projects sitting around, waiting to see the light of day, but after City of Angels and Salvation, don't look for them to hit the big screen anytime in your paltry existence. All in all, I stand by The Crow: City of Angels simply because I feel it was unfairly executed by many before it even got its 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 or Laser Mission! 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, at least the review's over now and you don't have to listen to it anymore...
The Moral of the Story: Iggy Pop has been dead for years, because nobody with a working circulatory system looks like that... unless you've made a pact with Lucifer ala Keith Richards.
Sequel To: The Crow
Sequels: The Crow: Salvation ; The Crow: Wicked Prayers
H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. Rating: 
- Loud music, guns and swords, bloody revenge and explosions, cheesy dialogue. There's no reason not to make this a party pull!... well, with the exception of the slow down parts and the "love story beyond the grave" stuff. Whoa, serious deja vu.
If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: Dark City or
Blade
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