The Crow:
City of Angels

	Review by Howard Anderson © 2001 Howard Anderson

Story

Against the macabre backdrop of the traditional Day of the Dead celebration, "The Crow: City of Angels" tells a new chapter in the gothic urban mythology of Love transcending Death.

Creating an all-new incarnation of the brooding dark hero - the victim of urban violence returned to the living world to exact personal justice - Vincent Perez portrays Ashe, the young man who emerges from the night of his own horrific murder with the mysterious powers of the Crow.

He returns to seek out and destroy the most savage criminals in a surrealistic city of preponderant evil. As he sets out on his fateful mission, Ashe becomes drawn to Sarah, someone with whom he seems to share psychic and emotional bonds.

Mia Kirshner plays Sarah, the young woman who as a young teenager first encountered The Crow and cannot escape this connection with her past. Legendary punk rocker Iggy Pop also stars as one of the cold-blooded killers responsible for Ashe's brutal death.

Review

I remember when I first heard that Miramax were making a sequel to "The Crow", and my first reaction was one of disbelief. After the tragic death of Brandon Lee during the making of the first film, I always considered that to be his final legacy, and the thought of someone wanting to make a sequel made me feel as if they were being disrespectful of his memory. The motive for churning out sequels to any film is almost always one of profit, and to try to cash in on the popularity of "The Crow", when so much of that was derived from the intense on-screen presence of Brandon Lee, it just struck me as being somewhat distasteful. That was my basic state of mind when I sat down to see "The Crow: City of Angels" the first time, and suffice to say, the impression I was left with was not a very positive one.

Seeing it again now, however, several years later and with yet another sequel in the can, I did not experience any of the initial ill-feeling. There are a lot of good things to be said about "The Crow: City of Angels", like the costume designs of Kirsten Everberg, the production design of Alex McDowell, and the spectacular cinematography of Jean Yves Escoffier. The whole world of The Crow is beautifully brought to life in this dystopian Los Angeles of the future, and it's all been given a very mythical atmosphere that fits the film perfectly. But where "The Crow: City of Angels" comes up short is in the story and character development, as I feel the story is a little too similar to the first film, and, with the exception of Sarah and Ashe, the other characters are given very little to work with.

Vincent Perez delivers a good performance as Ashe, especially in the scenes where he gets to show off some of his anger and frustration over his tragic fate, but these scenes strike me as being a little too similar to the torments of Eric Draven in the original. The antagonist of this piece, Judah, also pales in comparison with Michael Wincott's wickedly delightful villain in the first film, who had a much more enigmatic and mysterious presence about him. Iggy Pop and his villainous cohorts appear very flamboyant, but also very one-dimensional, and I guess the most interesting thing about them is what manner of death ultimately awaits them

When listening to the audio commentary track, I learned that director Tim Pope had initially set out to make a film very different from the original, and that is exactly what he did. But when the producers then got a first look at the film he had made, they ordered it to be completely re-edited to resemble the first film as closely as possible. I guess an IQ test is not a requisite if you wanna work as an executive producer in Hollywood. I also suspect that the screenplay by David S. Goyer is a lot better than what made it into the final cut, as Goyer has shown himself with both "Dark City and "Blade" to be a brilliant screenwriter. And just to prove my point about that, here is a quote from an interview with Goyer that I read in the August 1996 issue of Sci-Fi Entertainment:

"There was considerable give-and-take at the outset, as Goyer sought to create a story worth telling, in opposition to pressure from Miramax, the film's distributor, to carbon-copy the success of the original. 'The movie that we made isn't precisely the movie that I wanted to make at the beginning,' Goyer admits. 'I wanted to have a female Crow in the second film, and I wanted it to be Sarah - I thought that would be the most interesting kind of twist, to have a female Crow. And no one could make any comparisons to Brandon Lee if the Character was female. My second idea was to do a Gaslight Crow, a movie that took place in Victorian England, where I was going to pit the Victorian Crow up against Jack the Ripper.' "

That really makes you think about all the avenues they could have taken with this sequel, as opposed to the film we finally ended up with. But despite its flaws, there are some nice touches here, as well, like the presence of Sarah linking us to the first film, the way Sarah paints Ashe's face using the colors of his dead son, Sarah's premonitions about her ultimate fate, and small details like that. I guess sometimes you just have to take the good with the bad.

Image

The Collector's Series release of "The Crow: City of Angels" comes with a new Anamorphic Widescreen transfer, and this is the kind of richly textured film that should never have been released any other way. Complete with yellow smog interlaced with aquatic green lighting effects, director Tim Pope brought to life a world he wished to resemble a dream state, as if the action took place underwater, and all though I have never known smog to look beautiful, it still does on this DVD. The image is very clean, with bright colors and perfect black level throughout, and at no point did I notice any shimmering. All tough not flawless, this is still a top-notch transfer.

Sound

The Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 soundtracks are very similar, but as in most cases, I found that the DTS track had better separation and a more active soundstage than the Dolby Digital track. The music has always been a very important element in the world of The Crow, and the soundtrack here is very powerful and fills the room wonderfully. During the action sequences all channels are given plenty to do, with explosions, motorcycle chases and shoot-outs sounding amazing, and giving the bass a strong presence. The LFE channel is also put to very good use throughout this film, and the dialogue is crystal-clear every step of the way.

Features

With this being a Collector's Series DVD, there are some nice bonus features included here. There's an Audio Commentary track with producer Jeff Most, composer Graeme Revell, actor Richard Brooks, production designer Alex McDowell, and costume designer Kirsten Everberg. It's a nice commentary track where the participants have been recorded separately and then edited together, and all though it stays very much on the technical side of things, I still found it to be a good and interesting listen. In the Behind-the-Scenes Featurette you'll find several informative interviews, with people like Tim Pope, Vincent Perez, Mia Kirsher, Iggy Pop, David S. Goyer and James O'Barr, and clocking in at a little over 20 minutes, it's a really good behind-the-scenes look. The Production and Costume Design Featurette gives you great insight into the tremendous design work done for this film, and also a sense of the people behind it. It plays for about 23 minutes. The Original Poster Concepts are a run-trough of just that - the original posters. There's some really interesting and beautiful artwork to behold here, as can also be said about the Production Design Stills that you can view in the same fashion. You'll also find some DVD-ROM features and a selection of Sneak Peeks on this DVD.

Overall Opinion

"The Crow: City of Angels" isn't a half-bad sequel, and it does a great job of presenting the concept and the whole mythology of The Crow, but ultimately it will forever remain in the shadow of the first film. The DVD is released as a part of Disney's Collector's Series, and is more than worthy of its label. The extra features are nice, and the visual and aural presentations are extremely good. I have no regrets about buying this disc.