[critical] The Crow

Eric Draven was a young rock guitarist who file the perfect love with his girlfriend, a young woman of dazzling beauty. During a night of evil, at a time when the bands roam the streets in the dark of Detroit to commit murder and theft, Eric and Shelly are attacked in their homes by a gang of criminals led by the terrifying Top Dog. Eric witnesses the rape and murder of his girlfriend before being executed in turn. A year after their death, a mysterious raven appears at the grave of Eric. As if protected by the strange, volatile, Eric rises from his grave to wreak vengeance…

Author’s Note

[rating:8/10]

• Release Date : 3 August 1994

• Directed by Alex Proyas

• Film american

• With Brandon Lee, Michael Wincott, Ernie Hudson

• Duration : 1h41min

• Original title : The Crow

• Trailer :

Third film of the very rare director Alex Proyas, best known for having witnessed the death of his main performer Brandon Lee during the filming in conditions that are a little strange (they spoke as to his father Bruce Lee conspiracy), The Crow is an adaptation of a comic-book gothic underground created by James O Barr in 1989 following the death of his own girlfriend in a road accident.

The imagery in the gothic of the comic is here resumed with gusto. In a dark city using a lot at the Gotham City of the Batman of Tim Burton, the plot arises in an atmosphere that is both romantic (a death that comes up in the pain to avenge his beloved) and extremely violent and rock-and-roll. Moreover, the soundtrack of the film reflects this well : Nine Inch Nails, The Cure, Pantera, and other Rage Against The Machine are audible in The Crow. Violence is omnipresent in the act of revenge of the hero fighting with a very well choreographed and pyrotechnics quite aesthetic.

If the performance of Brandon Lee (and of its lining in the latest scenes to be filmed) is beyond reproach, in spite of a tendency to “pose” linked to the essence of the character who returns to haunt his killers, the villain played by Michael Wincott (seen from in Alien – The Resurrection) is also credible and increase the dose of madness (furious) that is needed to make it an enemy to be valid for this Eric Draven income from the dead.

So yes : the scenario is simplistic, but all the coating, either in terms of visual, in terms of rhythm or in terms of the charisma of the characters, magnifies what could have been a simple B-series lost in the end-bottom of a video-club (I breath to the headset that the VHS went out of fashion and my expression speaking of video-club has to have an expiry date which is close enough).

There remains, however, that The Crow was a very good movie a generational trend is gothic, and it allowed Alex Proyas to know before you make the excellent Dark City. This is an excellent adaptation of a comic book where a certain romanticism passes in a magma of violence and suffering : to see at least once if the genre appeals to you.