The Crow (1994)

I was disappointed with this movie. After hearing the reviews of how great this movie was and expecting something special from all the hoopla surrounding Brandon Lee’s death during filming (which probably was the wrong thing to do), I was left with only a feeling of partial satisfaction. Edward Scissorhands immediately came to mind after seeing the black and white characters and setting mixed in with the fantasy plot, and there was even a little Batman mixed in with the almost cartoon-like rooftop settings.

Movies can be great movies depicting reality, like Full Metal Jacket, and some can be great movies depicting fiction, like Batman. Some really great movies depict a combination of these two elements, like Back to the Future. But some attempts to combine the two elements fail miserably, as I believe The Crow did. Citing the artificial drama and fake emotions of some of the film’s most critical moments, it seemed to me that this movie was fiction that was almost totally ruined by unprofessional attempts forcing it to be a depiction of reality. It was still a decent movie, but had The Crow been left as the movie I think it was intended to be–a fictional heart-warming story unchanged by the harsh elements and emotions of reality, much like Edward Scissorhands–it would have been a much better representation of the story and a much better film.

As I watched the movie, it felt as if I was watching a feature-length music video. The music was decent, but the main themes all sounded the same and were used more artistically in the movie then as a direct supplement to the story. The music score was used very badly and did nothing to help the movie, and after learning that one of the big men behind the scenes produces movie videos after I had seen the movie, I must say that he should stick to music videos if he cannot make a clear distinction between film and music or how the two go together.

The film’s action sequences were very infrequent, choppy, and lacked the popular kung fu moves that made Brandon Lee famous. Violence is limited to fist-fighting and roof-throwing, and I did not feel I got the Brandon Lee action movie that he could have been so good at making.

Overall, it was a decent film with an original plot, but it wasn’t the great movie it could have been. It will no doubt do well in the box office as movie-goers bid a final farewell to Brandon Lee in this eerily dark movie about death and departure.