Face-Off: The Crow vs. Darkman

Brandon Lee as Eric Draven
Ernie Hudson as Sgt. Albrecht
Michael Wincott as Top Dollar
Rochelle Davis as Sarah
Sofia Shinas as Shelly Webster
Bai Ling as Myca
David Patrick Kelly as T-Bird
Angel David as Skank
Laurence Mason as Tin Tin
Michael Massee as Funboy
Tony Todd as Grange
Jon Polito as Gideon
 

From the moment THE CROW opens with the visual of several scattered buildings caught on fire across Detroit, you can tell Alex Proyas was making a different kind of dark comic book movie. Tim Burton’s BATMAN movies only a few years before painted Gotham City as a grounded, fantastical noir city, but here Proyas has established a world that’s vicious, unforgiving, terrifying and all kinds of f**ked. Here Proyas, with his first major movie, demonstrated a knack for impressive, dark-yet-enrapturing imagery that he would later use in DARK CITY, and which further cements THE CROW as one of the most unique movies in comic book/vigilante field. He all at once made a movie that can entertain audiences of any generation – with its slick, fast pace and abundance of somewhat cheesy but always awesome action – but that could only be made at one point in time. At a time when no one knew what to do with the genre outside of Batman movies, here is a movie that’s hard R with Proyas leaning into the adult themes with a moody, visceral hand. As for the world itself, Proyas created a world that feels raw and dangerous with its own network of characters and history – one filled with darkness around every corner but populated with just enough heart and wit and brought to life with enough dark beauty to not feel soul-crushing. Proyas made a movie that carved out its own place during its time, and one that holds that place even now, especially given the slew of superhero movies hitting screens today. 

The story of THE CROW is one any human on Earth can relate to: pure, unrelenting, bloodthirsty vengeance. Alright, maybe not *all* of you know what that feeling is like, but CROW is entirely driven by a revenge story with elements of the classic origin tale we all know well. Left for dead after the assault and murder of his fiancé, Eric Draven is brought back to life with the aid of a very special crow and is granted powers of healing, strength, and telepathy. He uses these gifts to hunt down the men who ruined his life one year after the event, right as Halloween is around the corner. While Proyas brought the seedy world of The Crow to life, writers David J. Schow and John Shirley took the character from James O’Barr’s comic and fleshed out an environment around him that feels just as rooted in a comic as it does the real world. The revenge sequences are written with just as much grit as they are black comedy, like when Eric goes in to take down Funboy and tells a Jesus joke as he’s being shot at – all before killing the crook with several heroin needles to the chest. Wrapped up in that scene you got some twisted humor, superhero-style elements (rapid healing) and some hardcore imagery that would be extreme in a major R-rated movie even today. That’s very much the tone of the script, which is filled with all sorts of colorful and deplorable characters, like Top Dollar and his band of cronies. The writers get the most props for bringing Draven to life, creating a concoction of Batman and Joker, a character who lives by night and takes down thugs, but is also a tinge mad and vicious himself, even with a beating heart underneath all the goth makeup. The side characters aren’t as interesting as the more colorful characters, but they serve a fine purpose in giving the movie some soul. But again, the script from Schow and Shirley is best commended for its world-building and juggling of various tones, which all together make this its own black-soaked beast in the field. 

For years, there have been attempts to recreate the magic of THE CROW through sequels, TV shows and attempts at a modern remake that have all fallen by the wayside, most recently with Jason Momoa and Corin Hardy bowing out of their planned new movie. The fact of the matter is the original movie is such a classic and totally irreplaceable, and a big reason for that is because of its star, Brandon Lee. The actor was perfectly cast to bring the resurrected hero to life, in no small part thanks to his incredible athleticism. There’s a dynamic and sleekness to the way his character moves and owns a room, and of course, he rocks it during some of the more intense fight sequences. More importantly, he brings humanity and wit to the character that poised him to be a major star. While you can sense his heartbreak underneath that mop of black, grungy hair, he adds to it with a slightly mad sense of humor that turns him into the hunky, crazy guy you love to root for when he’s blowing dudes away. He’s basically the equivalent of a grunge-era smolder come to life, and the ultimate tragedy of the movie is it was the last time we got to see his talent on the big screen after an on-set accident resulted in his untimely death. He could’ve great things after this movie, but at least we have this incredible example of his star-making talent. 

Bits:

City on Fire

The Crow Rises

The Past Comes Calling

Swallowing Bullets

The Transformation

Crow vs. Tin Tin

Knife Catch!

Pawn Shopping

Crow and Albrecht

Crow vs. Funboy

Crow and Albrecht 2

Crow Sends T-Bird Soaring

Moody Guitar Smash

Crow Takes on the Room of Thugs

Crow vs. Top Dollar

Lines:

Eric: "He was already dead. He died a year ago the moment he touched her. They're all dead. They just don't know it yet."

—–

Eric: "Can't rain all the time…"

—–

Albrecht: "Police! Don't move! I said, "Don't move!"
Eric: "I thought the police always said, "Freeze!"

—–

Eric: "Suddenly I heard a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door."
Gideon: "What are you talking about?"
Eric: "You heard me rapping, right?"

—–

Eric: "Victims; aren't we all?"

—–

Sarah: "If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them. Buildings burn, people die, but real love is forever."

—–

Funboy: "Jesus Christ!"
Eric: "Jesus Christ? Stop me if you heard this one: Jesus Christ walks into a hotel."

—–

Eric: "Is that gasoline I smell?"

—–

Top Dollar: "Our friend T-bird won't be joining us this evening on account of a slight case of death."

Awards:

3 Wins & 6 Nominations per IMDb

Praise:

Rotten Tomatoes: 81% (90% Audience Score)

Metacritic: 71 (8.7 Audience)

IMDb: 7.6

Money:

$50 million domestic

As I said above, the moment THE CROW starts with that incredible visual of the city on fire, establishing an apocalyptic visual palate that sells some of the biblical themes, you can tell this one is in a whole other class of comic book movie. From there on out Proyas, cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, production designer Alex McDowell and art directors John Marshall, Simon Murton collaborated to craft a movie that looks like a Tim Burton movie if it got sentenced to prison for triple homicide. It’s bleak and moody and aggressive and utterly compelling to look at, especially whenever the orange, hellfire lighting meshes with the pitch black of the city. There’s a dangerous personality to it that perfectly sells the movie as gritty comic book movie it sets out to be. You believe these people and this main character would all exist in this same space, and for how dreadful it all is I always wish there were better follow-ups that explored it more.

Laced in with Graeme Revell's ominous, mystical score is a soundtrack that's just about as famous as the movie itself. Featuring music from Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots, Pantera, The Cure and other bands you discovered as a teen but moved on from later, they add that accent of raw, rock 'n' roll energy that made that movie so much more a product of its time. But the score itself from Revell also deserves praise for creating an atmosphere as dark and unsettling as the visuals and production design. Tracks like "Birth of the Legend" have an air of mysticism and tribal feel to them, while also working some old-school cop movie vibes and orchestrational cues towards the end. Other tracks from the score paint a portrait of unique sounds that bounce between dread and action, like "'Her Eyes…So Innocent'" and "Tracking the Prey." It's a great score, and funny enough seems to take dark inspiration from the man in the next column…

There’s a lot of villainy that lingers on the streets in THE CROW, like the drug-addled thugs who “kill” Draven and assault his fiancé, each having their own over-the-top, madcap personalities. None of them are terribly complex or make for much of a fight against Draven, but they get to chew the scenery quite a bit all before they're killed in vicious, sometimes bizarre ways. Then there’s the big bad, Top Dollar, who looks like Dracula if he listened to a lot of Nine Inch Nails. Michael Wincott has this low intensity about him that makes his delivery of some cheesy lines quite a thing to listen to. In the case of his character, it’s all about the look and atmosphere and putting him and Draven in the same room together to create a cataclysm of smoldering vibes and moody personalities. It’s during the finale where he really gets to shine meshing his vampire-meets-heroin vibe with some swordplay. 

Both of these movies deal heavily in deranged figures, and THE CROW itself certainly has no shortage. The quick editing and splicing of scenes by Dov Hoenig and M. Scott Smith make for some insane and unsettling work, like whenever there’s a recap of the events in the loft. It plays like a delirious hallucination, an assembly of half-remembered moments. But, hey, as dark as that is, the characters (especially the thugs) lend that extra dose of silly crazy to their scenes, especially the character Skank, who is like is what a squirrel addicted to speed and arson would look like if it became a human being. But then there’s Lee’s Draven, who has his own case of the crazies and Lee wrings a lot of black humor and devil-may-care charm out of his scenes. Then there’s the kinetic action of it, making for a rip-roaring action flick that doesn’t skimp on the bonkers and is perhaps one of the wildest comic book movies you’re likely to see.