The Crow

Directed by: Alex Proyas

Premise: A rock musician returns from the dead a year after he and his wife were brutally murdered by a street gang. While being led by a crow, he avenges the murders.

What Works: The Crow remains one of the great comic book films even though, for some reason, the picture seems to have been largely left out of the popular discourse of this genre. This is a shame because, aside from the quality of the picture, the film has quite clearly influenced many subsequent comic book films, namely Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. This is a character driven picture and the performances of the film really leave an impression. Brandon Lee’s final on screen performance as Eric Draven (Lee was accidentally killed in the final weeks of production) is very impressive and he brings a lot of psychological depth to the role as this man comes to terms with a life that is already over and tries to improve it for those who have been left behind. There is also a great villain to be found in Michael Wincott’s role as Top Dollar, the crime lord of the city who is given a lot of thoughtful and occasionally witty dialogue. This is a very unique character within the genre and Wincott delivers in his performance. Compared to some of the overblown and overproduced comic book films of late, The Crow has a very modest scale but this works to the film’s advantage. One of the common pitfalls of pictures like this is a tendency to spend more time on the art direction than on the characters or the narrative. The Crow avoids this, keeping the scenery in the background where it belongs and using a very natural urban setting, and keeping the action scenes credible. As a result of its pared down and drab look, the visual style of The Crow has sustained its relevance over a decade after its release. Also, the music composition of The Crow is worth mentioning. The score by Graeme Revell mixes very nicely with a selection of mid-1990s industrial rock music and the score moves smoothly between percussive action cues and sweeping romantic themes. Although the rock music places the film in a specific era of time, the overall musical sound of The Crow has aged very well and continues to sound right for the film.

What Doesn’t: The Crow was made in the mid-1990s and there are a few shots done with computer graphics that don’t stand up as well. The ending of the film is rather sudden but it does wrap up the story.

DVD extras: Featurettes, storyboards, image galleries, deleted scenes, and DVD-ROM features.

Bottom Line: The Crow is an important comic book film both for what it brought to the genre and because of the excellence of its production and it deserves to be ranked with Superman: The Movie, Batman, and The Dark Knight among the top films in this genre.