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The Crow
(***1/2)
To watch movies like The Crow is to experience a very interesting, and sometimes disorienting, event. The Crow seems made to be a comic book. This is a compliment, of course. In the Hollywood of yesteryear there was a style unlike anything anyone had ever seen. In this world, we could see gangsters shooting each other, and science fiction. Basically, there were worlds which simply didn't really exist commonly. It was this world that the comic books we know the most about borrowed from. Previously, it was mostly comics of the "Andy Capp" style. But, after liberal borrowing from the motion picture industry, exotic locales came into existence. Each frame seemed to be a shot of a camera, giving us an other-worldly cinematic feel. Suddenly there were comic books about horribly scarred and mutated people disfigured from nuclear fall-out; space aliens come to earth to fight crime in a budding "metropolis". Most importantly, there was a healthy noir feel. It was from this world that we have The Crow.
As far as I know, The Crow was never actually a comic book. However, it's more than a little ironic that the cinema is now borrowing from the very source that got its start from cinema in the first place. As I watch The Crow I get the strangest sense that each shot could be sketched out and placed into a comic.
The Crow centers around Eric Draven (Lee), a man murdered on the night before Halloween. According to the opening narration, a crow guides the spirits. But if there is unfinished business the spirit gets a chance to come back and right the wrongs. So it's not too surprising to see Draven tear his way out of a cemetary exactly one year after his death. After visiting the scene of the crime and discovering that it wasn't some sick nightmare, Draven dresses up as a ghoulish mime and prepares to butcher everyone who gets in his way.
Of course, someone does get in his way. An evil crime lord (Michael Wincott), obsessed with the hypnotic power of the crow watching over Draven. But Draven can't be killed. Bullets simply go straight through him, except for *certain* circumstances. Those "certain circumstances" are always present in the comic books.
Overall, The Crow is a hypnotic and powerful motion picture headed by Brandon Lee. To look at this movie as anything other than the "graphic novel" it's destined to be would be foolish; and would simply detract from the overall experience. Just as many disliked comic book homages as "Blade", "Mystery Men", and 1998's stellar "Dark City", The Crow requires one to simply sit back and enjoy the story.