The Crow, 1994.
Directed by Alex Proyas.
Starring Brandon Lee, Ernie Hudson, Michael Wincott, Rochelle Davis, Bai Ling, and Sofia Shinas.
SYNOPSIS:
Alex Proyas’s cult classic The Crow makes its way to 4K Ultra HD, sporting a brand new transfer that puts the “noir” in “film noir,” a pair of new bonus features, and a code for a digital copy. Legacy extras were included too. My review copy is the SteelBook edition, but there’s a standard one available too.
I’m not sure how to start this review, so I guess that’s how I’ll begin this one. My thoughts on The Crow, in no particular order: I remember being enthralled with it in the theater in 1994, since it was a very faithful adaptation of James O’Barr’s comic book; what happened to Brandon Lee is still such a tragedy; and it feels a bit dated today, especially with its reliance on grunge music that was so cool at the time.
One more thing on my mind: Back in the late 90s, I worked on a Crow comic book that was going to be set in the Wild West, which was perfect for using the Skull Cowboy character who didn’t appear in the 1994 movie. The artist I was working with claimed to be friends with James O’Barr, but, like so many things I worked on back then, it just kind of fizzled out. I still don’t know if that guy was telling the truth. Oh well.
The storyline in The Crow is pretty simple: Brandon Lee plays Eric Draven, a musician who lives in a crime-riddled area of Detroit with his fiancé, Shelly (Sofia Shinas). Local crime boss Top Dollar (Michael Wincott) commands a group of his thugs to pay the couple a visit because they’re fighting back against forced evictions that will allow him to seize their decrepit apartment building.
Both of them die, but Eric is reborn a year later as The Crow, who visits Sarah (Rochelle Davis), a young girl who Eric and Shelly befriended because of her drug-addicted absentee mother, and Sergeant Albrecht (Ernie Hudson), a police officer who was on the scene the night the couple died.
The bulk of the story is a tale of vengeance, as The Crow takes out Top Dollar’s thugs one by one before engaging in a climactic rooftop battle with him. It’s basically a wish fulfillment fantasy in the same vein as the Death Wish and Dirty Harry movies, but it has gothic overtones and a certain sense of style infused into it by director Alex Proyas, and that’s what sets it apart, in my opinion.
If you’re a fan of The Crow too, you’ll want to grab this new 4K Ultra HD release from Paramount. Since this is a very dark movie, both metaphorically and literally, the 4K presentation could be problematic, but it’s not. The black levels of every scene are deep and dark, and the contrasting white levels stand out the way they should. In short, this is the way the movie should be seen in a home theater.
Paramount also went the extra distance in commissioning a pair of new bonus features for this edition. The first is the three-part Shadows & Pain: Designing The Crow, which runs 25 minutes total and takes a look back at the movie with production designer Dariusz Wolski, who discusses everything from the film’s inception to its production.
The other new extra is Sideshow Collectibles: An Interview with Edward R. Pressman, which is a little over 13 minutes long. Pressman, who died last year, produced the film, and here he discusses a new high-end Crow figurine from Sideshow Collectibles. Feel free to disagree with me, but I feel like this is more of a promotional piece to sell stuff to fans, as opposed to something that heightens my knowledge of the movie.
The rest of the extras were ported over from previous releases. This is my first time owning The Crow on home video, so I don’t know if anything is missing, but here’s what you’ll find:
• Commentary with Alex Proyas: If you’re interested in the process of adapting a comic book to a movie (or a story in any medium into a movie), this is a track for you. Proyas digs deep into the how’s and why’s of his process. He doesn’t have a lot to say about Brandon Lee’s death, which I think is a good thing, honestly.
• Commentary with producer Jeff Most and screenwriter John Shirley: Brandon Lee’s name pops up more often here, which makes sense since producer Jeff Most was one of the key people who had to figure out how to finish the film without him. He and screenwriter John Shirley give a good overview of the movie that complements Proyas’s track. (To answer an obvious question: Yes, Proyas was also one of the key folks who had to deal with how to handle Brandon’s death too, but it makes more sense to me to have a producer get into those details.)
• Behind the Scenes featurette (16.5 minutes): This is an old-school featurette that I assume is from the DVD days. A lot of the interview footage was shot during production, so we get to hear from Brandon Lee here, which is nice.
• A Profile on James O’Barr (33.5 minutes): The creator of The Crow gets his turn in the spotlight here. He created the story as a way to help process a tragedy in his own life — the death of his fiancé, Beverly, in an accident caused by a drunk driver — which makes this a somber bonus feature. And, hey, that’s fine with me, since you shouldn’t expect a lot of wisecracking on a disc like this one.
• Extended scenes and deleted footage montage (17 minutes total): Nothing included here is necessarily earth-shattering, but it’s a nice thing for fans to check out. Of particular interest is a glimpse of the Skull Cowboy, a character who guided The Crow in the comic book but was cut out of the movie entirely.
The film’s trailer rounds out the platter. You’ll also find a code for a digital copy. Oh, and this movie is available in SteelBook packaging too, if that’s your thing.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
