Absolutely Fantastic

A Masterpiece!

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Now let's be real, there's only one good Crow film. They were just never able to catch that midnight magic again, though they tried, with four more films and a dud of a TV series. Each of the sequels is nearly the exact same as the first, in terms of plot: a man is killed by feral urban thugs, only to be resurrected one year later by a mysterious crow, blessed with invincibility and begins to work his way through the merry band of scumbags in brutal acts of revenge, arriving at the crime lord sitting atop the food chain, usually a freak with vague ties to the supernatural or occult. All the films in the series are structured that way, but only one deviated and tried something slightly different with the formula. City of Angels, the second, is a boring, almost identical retread of the first, it's only energy coming from a coked up Iggy Pop. Wicked Prayer, the fourth, had a premise with potential aplenty, and turned out so maddeningly awful I'm still dabbing the blood from my eye sockets. Salvation, however, is the third entry and almost finds new air to breathe by altering the premise slightly. Instead of lowlife criminals, it's a posse of corrupt police detectives who frame an innocent dude (Resident Evil's Eric Mabius) for crimes they themselves committed, fry him to a crisp in the electric chair and get off scott free. His girlfriend (Jodi Lyn O'Keefe) is also killed in the process. Now, not only is it cops instead of criminals, but the arch baddie at the top of the pile is the police commissioner, who has occult written all over him. *Not only* that, but he's played by Fred Ward, who is brilliant in anything. While nowhere near an iota of the atmosphere or quality of the first film, this one works better than any of the other sequels, thanks to that spark of an idea that changes the game ever so much. The detectives are a nice and skeevy bunch too, played by the reptilian likes of William Atherton, Walton Goggins and others. Ward wears the starched, proper uniform of an authoritative figure, but his eyes gleam with the same secrets and dark magic we saw in the two other previous underworld kingpins, Top Dollar (Michael Wincott) and Judah Earl (Richard Brooks), but it's that contrast that takes you off guard and makes things more intriguing. And as for Eric, does he hold his own with the others who've played the role? Mabius he does, Mabius he doesn't, you'll just have to watch and see. He definitely knocks Vincent Perez out of the park, that silly Frenchman. Real talk though, no one will ever dethrone Brandon Lee, not even whatever pisant they get for the remake that's been hovering on the fringes of preproduction for the last half decade. On top of it all we also get Kirsten Dunst, of all people, as a sympathetic attorney who works alongside Mabius to clear his name, as he clears the streets of no-good crooked cops. So there you have it. If you ever find yourself meandering around the kiosks in blockbuster, and see the Crow films lined up on the shelves like emo ducks in a row, the first film will naturally already be rented out. Where then to turn? You can certainly do worse than this one.

The core story of this movie is really good, but like the other sequels, it revels in extreme sexuality and gore, neither of which were in the original.Eric Mabius ("Resident Evil", TV's "Ugly Betty") stars as Alex Corvis, convicted for the brutal murder of his girlfriend Lauren Randall (Jodi-Lyn O'Keefe). Framed for the crime, and without any evidence to support his innocence, Alex is executed on the night of his 21st birthday. Hours later, he is revived by a hypnotic crow, and given the power of invincibility. Breaking into the police evidence room, Alex finds a list of witnesses from his trial. The first, Tommy Leonard, tells Alex the cops on that list blackmailed him.Soon, Lauren's sister Erin (Kirsten Dunst) runs into Alex while visiting Lauren's grave, but he disappears. Later, he visits her home with evidence incriminating her father (William Atherton). Faced with the truth, she agrees to help him, but is soon kidnapped by the corrupt police chief (Fred Ward). Killing all the officers in a quest to find Lauren's real murderer, Alex is fooled into thinking his mission's finished. Now mortal, he finds out the captain ordered Lauren's death, but is stabbed repeatedly while confronting him. Dying again, Eric is brought to the captain's lair, but has his powers restored by the crow for a final showdown. Back at the prison's execution chamber, Alex and Erin watch as the captain is electrocuted. Finally free, Alex vanishes for good, and Erin visits his grave sometime later.My main reasons for rating the film so low are due to explicit sexuality and gore. Several people are repeatedly stabbed, one man has a name carved into his head, and another's arm is cut off. Extended walks through a strip club show topless dancers and fully nude porn workers. The language is about on par with the rest of the series, and definitely fits the R rating.

I don't know why this movie is so hated. I really don't. The acting was good, writing was good, characters were good. I just do not see it. Okay, I still haven't seen Wicked Prayer but I'm not expecting big things, this movie was the best Crow sequel so far, nothing compared to the original, but good. The character of Alex Corvis is really likable, as opposed to ashe, I always get those two mixed up because they have the same first initial and last name, so that bugs me. I can really understand Alex's plight and that he really does love his girlfriend, his journey (unlike Ashe's) emotes feelings in the viewer, and the actor playing him was really good too. (Another contrast to Ashe, the makeup is decent)

I'm the biggest Brandon/Bruce Lee fan in the world but enough!!! People are going to always compare this movie to the first one and Eric Mabius to Brandon Lee. That's where I think this movie suffers.I think storyline-wise it would have been better of he hadn't have resurrected right after his execution. They should have left him dead for a while. When he came back it didn't really seem like all that much of a shock. The bad guys just thought they had botched the execution and mistakenly pronounced him dead. Maybe even have gone so far as to have him resurrect on the autopsy table, not from his grave because that would have been a direct copy of Crow number One.All in all a decent little flick but suffers from comparisons to its predecessors.