The Crow

Looks serious right? it is.

"In a world without justice, one man was chosen to protect the innocent."

Hello everyone, welcome back to The Tagline after my short weekend away! I did NOT give away a copy of The Crow to anyone, but now I will review it for all of you. It seems appropriate with the approach of Halloween! You see, there was a time once called the 1990s. During this time, now lost to history and left only in fable and myth, everything was super deadly serious, no matter how ridiculous it might have seemed. Paradoxically no one cared about anything, because that was super uncool. Out of this fertile bed of alternativeness sprang The Crow, a film direct by Alex Proyas, who also later directed Dark City, the first movie I reviewed on The Tagline in its current incarnation. The Crow was loosely based on a comic series of the same name, about a musician named Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) who is murdered, along with his fiance on October 30th, in a urban gothic hellscape version of Detroit (slightly worse than real Detroit).

Scary leather death clown. Check!

Draven is returned from the dead as an nigh-invincible avatar of vengeance, in order to kill those responsible for his death, and most of the crime in the city. He paints his face like some sort of fucked up death clown, wears all leather, and jumps across the same rooftops as in Dark City, while Nine Inch Nails plays. This is maybe the most '90s goth thing that has ever happened in the history of the world. NIN actually wrote a song specifically for this movie, about how they keep calling him. I don't know what Trent Reznor's talking about, but it sounds seriously fucking alternative. Afterwards, the crow uses his awesome crow powers to kill some really gross rapist guy, and that's pretty awesome. Don't let all his murdering fool you though! Eric Draven is a sensitive guy who wrote really wussy '90s rock. He just has other things to do right now. He's cleaning up the streets, and he's gonna kill the evil crime boss, and his creepy asian sex sister witch, who he has sex with and I'm pretty sure they're brother and sister somehow.

I'd be scared of this guy. He's fucking crazy.

The plot is fairly straightforward, and the crow is straightforward in his execution of his revenge. No fancy stuff, no convoluted plots, he just goes around through the city killing every person responsible for his death. He does this with knives, explosions, and guns. Very '90s action, and that's what's best about it. This movie isn't apologizing, it isn't trying to be tricky, it's straight to the point. Supporting cast include Ernie Hudson, probably best known for his roll in the Ghostbusters movies as Winston Zeddmore and a bunch of other people no one cares about. Most of the people in this movie have not done much else, and this was the final performance of Brandon Lee (who was by the way the son of Bruce Lee) who died during filming. He actually died before filming was completed, and the remaining scenes had to be shot with a body double and computer graphics.

How does your makeup not run in the rain?

Considering the subject matter of the movie, Brandon Lee's death was especially eerie. For those who don't know, during the filming of a scene where he was supposed to be shot, one of the blank guns, unbeknownst to the crew, had a fragment of a blank shell lodged in the barrel. When the gun was fired, the fragment hit Lee, in his spinal column. He was rushed to the hospital, where he died hours later. The movie almost wasn't finished as a result, but so much had been done that they decided to finish filming. The accident was the result of lax safety measures, and inexperienced crew members handling firearms.  To which all I have to say is, what the fuck guys.

Oh yeah, the ending battle scene takes place in a gothic church.

The film was released to overwhelmingly positive reviews, and did very well in the box office. With a budget of approximately 23 million, the film grossed over 144 million dollars, and has gained a devoted following, enjoying pretty vigorous dvd sales. I'm glad to see that for once, a good movie was actually appreciated by audiences and critics. Alex Proyas wouldn't see such success in his next intensely dark film with lots of shots on rooftops, but then I guess you can't win them all. If you didn't see this movie, now, in the Halloween season, is the perfect time to put on some dark eyeliner and contemplate death in the dark.

That's it for today! I'll see you all on Thursday, for maybe another spoooktacular movie!