The Crow (6/10)

              The Crow had been recommended to me by a few friends of mine, so I figured I’d give it a try.  I read a few reviews online before watching it and was pretty excited.  They said it was a deep movie with a lot to say.  After watching it, I have no idea what the hell they were talking about.   It was a pretty decent action movie, but the only depth was that revenge is good.   In fact, it’s so important that you might come back from the dead for revenge.  That’s not very deep to me.  The fact that he was so mad because the love of his life was killed as well doesn’t really add depth. 

                The characters are good, that’s for sure.  The bad guys are really screwed up, the hero is a pretty normal guy (right up until the part where he comes back from the dead) and all in all they were very satisfying.  Cop with a heart of gold, and a kid who’s a little too old for her age.  Classic people.   In fact, Brandon Lee’s performance is quite striking, and reminded me very strongly of Heath Ledger’s Joker.  The mannerisms and accentuated words seemed very similar.  I enjoyed both roles.

                But the real problem with this movie is a lack of tension.  For the entire time he’s eking out his revenge one death at a time, he’s invincible.  The main character who we’re supposed to be worried about can’t be hurt.  Every fight he gets into is a foregone conclusion. It’s a bit satisfying to see him get his revenge, but really, it’s not very exciting, even with gratuitously large explosions.  They find an excuse for him to become vulnerable at the end, but the final show down with the head bad guy doesn’t make any sense plot wise.  Why did he know that Erik would care about the girl?  Why did he even particularly care about killing Erik?  It seemed very unnecessary, I even found myself asking aloud “Why is this movie still going?”

                There isn’t much else to say.  The atmosphere the movie created was great, but it was just the same way movies have created atmosphere for decades, it was raining all the time.  Blade Runner did it and did it better.  The city felt despondent, but it didn’t feel like that was necessary.  The action was fun, but the lack of tension stopped this movie from being great.  As it is, it’s a decent action flick with an odd sort of ambiance and characters from a subculture.  6/10, watch if it’s on TV, but I wouldn’t bother searching it out

(IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109506/)

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