The Crow - DVDfever.co.uk

The Crowis another film based on a comic book series and comic strip,and stars Brandon Lee, the son of the legendary Bruce Lee, as rock starEric Draven who, together with his girlfriend Shelley, are killed on October30th – Devil’s Night, at the hands of the inner city’s most notoriouscharacters.

The premise for this film goes like this :

People once believed that when someone dies a crow carries their soul
to the land of the dead, but sometimes something so bad happens
that a terriblesadness is carried with it, and the soul can’t rest.
Then sometimes, justsometimes,
the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.

…and so after Eric’s return to his apartment, which shows a flashback to thefateful night, he puts on some make-up to fit in with the Halloween crowd andthen sets off to wreak vengeance until all the gang are dead includingthe leader, Top Dollar.

For Brandon, just as he was beginning to break into the mainstream film market,this one was to be his last. Just as his father was killed in a suspiciousaccident, a scene on The Crow involving a handgun being put to Brandon’s headled to his death. The gun was meant to contain only blanks, but insteadcontained some form of projectile and as the trigger pulled it led to his death.A bizarre coincidence considering his role as a dead rock star.

As his death occured before filming was complete, the crew had to create therest of the film around footage of Brandon already shot, which included placinghim in other scenes digitally such as the one following his resurrection, inwhich he was visualised walking through the door to his apartment with holesin the roof and raining dripping through, whereas he was actually filmed walkingthrough a dark, rain-soaked alley.

Other films of his include the action-packed Showdown In Little Tokyo,in which he starred alongside Dolph Lundgren. After Rapid Fire,had he not met such an untimely death, a sequel would have been made – thescript of which had already been written but was later tweaked to fit acertain action trilogy and became the basis for 1995’s “Die Hard With AVengeance” starring Bruce Willis, Samuel L Jackson and JeremyIrons. A sequel was made to the Crow in 1996, “Crow 2: City of Angels”,but that one starred Vincent Perez in the title role.

The rest of the cast is filled out by Ernie Hudson as Albrecht, theoverworked and underpaid cop who thought he’d put this case to bed a year ago,Michael Wincott as Top Dollar, a bad guy with as many one-liners to hiscredit as bullets in his gun, and a host of Top Dollars henchmen.

The picture quality is very crisp, and while being fullscreen, on comparisonwith the NTSC release, it shows that the fullscreen version has some extrainformation at the top and bottom of the picture while losing a sliver ofinformation at the sides. The film will have been shot full-frame, but maskedto 1.85:1 for cinema presentation.

One thing to note is that while the PAL release treats some of the areas wheredarkness meets light as a straight-forward contrast between black and white,the NTSC release brings an added blue light into the proceedings, making thescenes look a bit brighter, which begs the question why has the PAL transferhad to make do with a darker transfer? That’s not to mention why this releaseis fullscreen in the first place when the US market has recently seen a THXDolby Digital widescreen version.

The sound is also good and clear, but the explosions don’t quite seem topack the meaty bang one expects from laserdisc on side one, although by thetime we reach side two things are back to what’s expected and the final showdownis a surround-sound treat. The film itself has a good score from Graeme Revell,and an engaging soundtrack from a number of grunge bands, and one stand-outtrack from the definitely non-grunge Jane Siberry, “It Can’t Rain All TheTime”, even though it seems to do so in this film…

The disc could also have done with twice as many chapters, especially as thelast one is almost 20-minutes long, as there are only 17 spread throughout the98-minute length, and there are also no extras to the package.

Overall, while the film is an enjoyable piece of hokum but at times may looklike it’s suffered at the hands of the BBFC as some scenes in which you expectmore gory events – Top Dollar’s demise, for example – you can rest assured thatit hasn’t, as I compared these parts to those on the NTSC release, and it canbe put down to some fairly average editing.

The package is let down by under-par picture and sound performance, and a lackof the widescreen treatment and any extras, such as an interview with BrandonLee, which adorned not only the NTSC release, but also the fullscreen PALvideo (!)

Film: 3/5
Picture: 3/5
Sound: 4/5

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Dom Robinson

Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.

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