The Crow (1994)

The Crow (1994)
I hadn't seen it for about ten years and as the full moon came beaming through my apartment window late last night, it just felt right to indulge in some Proyas Gothic excellence.
The question still taps away at all our doors, namely would the film be the cult classic it became without the Brandon Lee tragedy? That's a tricky one to answer because we all deep down have a morbid curiosity about us, especially with films and their stars. This is why I got a lot more from re-watching the movie after a very long period of time, namely that it may have drew many of us in years ago because of the tragedy and heart aching back story to writer James O'Barr's birthing of Eric Draven the character, but it can now enthral, thrill and shatter emotions of its own accord.
The Gothic art design and the soundtrack are emo personified before such a label was invented, Lee is lithe and skilful and serving notice to what a talent we were robbed of that fateful day in March 1993. The villains are a roll call of go to guys for such roles, Kelly, Wincott, Todd, while Ernie Hudson fronts up as good cop personified. And finally Proyas, struggling with the budget even before Brandon's death, that he manages to create this world of perpetual bleakness, but still offer hope and beauty - the latter via tracking shots, pull aways and intricate frame shots of a tormented Draven, shows him to be a purveyor of considerable skills.
All told, The Crow (1994) deserves to not be thought of as a cult classic, but just as a classic, period. 9.5/10

Well if you though it was wet on "Blade Runner" (1982) then welcome to a ruined city where the torrential rain never seems to stop. A series of flashbacks tells us that two graves hold the bodies of a young couple about to be married. That's before local kingpin "Top Dollar" (Michael Wincott), who had designs on their building, sent his henchmen to "coax" them out. A year after this tragedy a crow alights on the grave of "Eric" (Brandon Lee) and enlivens his corpse so that he may avenge the brutality visited on his fiancée and himself. What now ensues is a dark and menacing revenge thriller that, though fairly predictable, sees this former rock musician develop some astonishingly lethal ninja skills as he identifies and then rather entertainingly despatches a variety of drug dealing undesirables whilst retaining a sense of the decent by befriending local cop "Albrecht" (Ernie Hudson) and re-connecting with the young "Sarah" (Rochelle Davis) whose mother is another of the addicts in this dismal and hopeless city. It's the enigmatic "Myca" (Bai Ling) who spots the Achilles heel of our hero and so sets a scene with her menacing beau as "Eric" hones in on the final stage of a challenge that will hopefully allow him to return to his own grave in peace. Lee is really is in his element here and Alex Proyas and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski use the grim, sodden and ruined environment to depict as physical a corruption as the story does a societal one. What dialogue there is is largely left to an engaging contribution from Hudson, who has his own mini axe to grind with his police colleagues who saw him busted from detective for trying to investigate the activities of "Dollar" before. When you watch this film, you can't help but think on the number of other characterisations it has spawned, and it shows how revenge horror can work without resorting to endless special effects and jump-scenes. A cinema screening is best - a big dark room that makes you hear that relentless rain fall all around you.