Simply A Masterpiece

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Absolutely Fantastic

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I don't think we as an audience appreciate just how disastrously wrong The Crow could have gone. The Crow is one of those stories with such dark subject matter and such brooding visuals that in the hands of lesser filmmakers it could have gone horribly wrong and ended up as some dark bitter mess like Batman Returns. Thankfully the right people were involved and we got the movie we did. And then they made a sequel. Now I'm not one of those people who thinks that 'The Crow' shouldn't have a sequel. The idea that there are other lost souls who must return to earth to right some wrong is not a bad one. But not like this. This movie fails across the board, the story goes on way too long and is hopelessly convoluted despite a pretty simple set up, the music is almost none stop grunge punk rock that adds nothing to the scenes. But the biggest problem with this movie is the way it looks. The director is a man named Tim Pope. Never heard of him? Well before this movie he directed music videos and do you know what he made after this movie? More music videos! This movie is shot like a music video, the camera is too close, the shots are all framed wrong, the angles are weird and the editing is nauseating. Of course this style could be forgiven if it wasn't for the fact this is the ugliest movie I have ever seen in my life. Gone is the smooth neo-Gothic look of the first movie. In its place is hideously ugly punk grunge look with bright colours and nauseating shades that are actually difficult to look at half the time. The music video style directing and editing only makes it worse and I'm sure those with weaker stomachs might actually throw up watching this film. To make all this even worse the story goes out of its way to be dark and gritty adding even more nauseating imagery to this already stomach turning movie. But even the worst movie can be saved by the performances, sadly the performances in this movie only serve as the icing on the garbage cake. The script is ridiculously cheesy and grimy and the actors they picked to say it are dreadful; Vincent Perez doesn't have the aura of menace Brandon Lee had and so he just comes off as sulky half the time and the other half he spends pretending to be intimidating, Richard Brooks's performance as the villain Judas Earl is terrible as none of his lines are delivered properly, they all come off as either bored or forced. This is one of the absolute worst movie I've ever seen. This is a joyless grungy mess that no on should ever have to watch even for the sake of curiosity. I would tell you to destroy it but that would involve buying it and I don't want that. Instead I want no one to buy it. I want all the copies to sit on stores shelves for years and years and years until the company has no choice but to take them all out in the middle of nowhere and bury them in big pit so they can slowly biodegrade until there is nothing left but a grungy patch of earth where nothing can grow. I hate this movie.

The Crow: City of Angels (1996): Dir: Tim Pope / Cast: Vincent Perez, Mia Kershner, Iggy Pop, Thomas Jane, Vincent Castellanos: Thankless chunk of sewage that delivers nothing but visual effects. We never learn anything of this city of angels but it's probably just as well. Vincent Perez steps in replacing Brandon Lee who died while filmmaking the original. In that film a young man is killed by a gang and the revenge he enacts when a crow becomes his vision. In this sequel the same crap happens again and he kills the guilty one by one. Director Tim Pope allows everything to get away on him. Instead of a man and wife, it is a father and son who witness a murder and are erased for it. He kills them one by one and we don't give a rat's ass. Perez is not doing anyone any favors by appearing in this mess and Mia Kershner delights in sharing the overacting credit. Also wasting our time are singing sensation Iggy Pop, looking less than sensational here, and Thomas Jane who looks even less sensational. This junk exist only because the first Halloween act of lunacy made money. But let it be known that the first film is basically Death Wish in costume. For better use of your time, listen to any number of Iggy Pop songs. This pathetic sequel should be placed in a trash bag and burned along with the other garbage that emerged from Hollywood this year. Score: 1 / 10

Sarah, the skateboarding street urchin from the first Crow film, is now all grown up, looking fine, and living in Los Angeles, where she meets Ashe (Vincent Perez), who has recently returned from the dead. Recognising all the signs of a recently resurrected soul from the netherworld—the tortured expression, bedraggled hair, and a crow for a companion—Sarah (played by hottie Mia Kirshner) slaps some paint on Ashe's face and sends him off to find those responsible for killing him and his son.The Crow: City of Angels is basically a retread of the first film, only with cheesy characters and laughable dialogue, a less charismatic actor in the lead role, and a less talented movie-maker in the director's chair. Perez has none of the screen presence of Lee, while Alex Proyas' replacement, MTV video director Tim Pope, tries to bring his own sense of cool to proceedings by plundering his music promo bag of tricks, swathing every scene in smoke and brightly coloured lights. The result is a garish multicoloured nightmare that has none of the dark splendour or haunting atmosphere of Proyas' Gothic vision.Matters are made even worse by a weak head villain in the form of shirtless S&M fetishist Judah (Richard Brooks), who gets all of the worst lines, and a couple of terrible supporting performances from Iggy Pop as Judah's crazy henchman Curve and Ian Dury as Sarah's lovable tattoo parlour boss Noah.

aaah, the crow city of angels. bad acting, poorly choreographed fight scenes, s&m gimps, men with prettier hair than the ladies, men kissing each other and lots of "okay, why did that just happen?" moments. what not to like? the only Strong point to this movie would probably be its set design. other than that its damn near unbearable. have you ever been somewhere at night or on a cloudy day and saw a guy rocking dark sun glasses? you think to yourself "what a total douche!" but you know in his mind, he's totally cool. thats the vibe i get from this movie. the movies far to overkill with the goth thing and it doesn't work. it did in the original crow. but this one feels like its just trying way too hard. then we have Vincent Perez. wooden and just not as interesting to watch as Brandon lee and makes the character boring. plus the whole 1970's looking feathered out haircut just drains any intimidation factor to the crow and makes him look plain comical. to put it simple, i wish i didn't even watch this mess.