Mahkir

I've been strangely fascinated by this film since I was a teenager, having first read the novelization and a book that went behind-the-scenes on the production before I ever saw the finished product.

The first thing one notices is an abundance of yellow lighting filters, that the model city is impressive but not as real-looking as its predecessor and after meeting our dream-plagued beauty, Mia Kirscher, we are deluged by some toe-curling B-movie acting from the villains.

This opening scene in Judah's 'Temple of Pain' makes me wonder how high the director was when he was making this failed masterpiece - and that is what it is - like the shattered ruins of some Ancient Egyptian palace, now and again we catch a glimpse of what would have been had the Fates not intervened.

The actor who plays Spider-Monkey is the first hammer-blow on the face of that colossus. The name implies a certain simian eccentricity but the actor comes across like some fucked-up rock-band groupie who the director owed money. He sounds a bit like Needles from Back To The Future, only more drug-blitzed and Valley-dazzled, saying lines that are clearly written for someone deeper and more dapper, "Flowers for the dead, senor?"

The dope-lab encounter that ends with Spider-Monkey being incinerated is also bizarre. I think Vincent Perez is a very good actor and he carried La Reine Margot very well, yet in conveying the collision of emotions in this 'first kill' scene, it comes across very hammy. He's dressed like a mime artist and he's also acting like one - pulling large Commedia Dell'arte faces. It just pales in comparison to Brandon Lee's fun and charismatic knife-throwing showdown with Tintin from the original. In fact, Spider-Monkey is engulfed in a micro-second by the chemical fire, so he's not even a genuine victim of The Crow.

There is a little sequence of lame moments that follows, with Palm Trees inexplicably bursting into flames as the crow flies past them and then when Curve rides up to inspect the smouldering ruins of the factory, he spies on the floor a collage made of broken glass, the first of the bird emblems - except, this hasn't been made by Ashe as his 'signature' but by some supernatural force.

There is a cheesey moment before this action where Ashe rises from his watery grave a la Jesus, in a pathos scene only to be matched by Darth Vader in Revenge of the Sith - where there is an emphasis on style over substance again, though one does wonder if the Director was deliberately peppering-in some foreshadowing over the supernatural elements to come?

Just to reiterate at this point, I do love this movie, I know it doesn't sound like it...

Let's start with the aesthetics... every piece of graffiti in the background has meaning. The production crew invented a whole new street language and covered every set-piece in it, from the glass of the peep-shows to the walls of the storm-drain where Curve meets his beautiful death.

Thing is, the book fleshes out these villains much better too. Each one has some personal tragedy that has put them on their course. For example, 'Nemo', the second victim, was an obsessive voyeur who filmed everything. He was a virgin who relied on peep-shows and snuff-movies to get him off because - drum-roll - someone close to him died of AIDS and he became terrified of intimacy. Now that's a fairly good psychological back-story for henchmen cannon-fodder.

This is an interesting part of the movie as well because it starts to innovate. The murder of Nemo, even though it is vengeance, is cruel and sadistic. Basically Nemo was just 'there' in the background when Ashe and his son were murdered - sure he was filming it, but as mentioned, he films everything as part of his 'hang-up'. The Crow beats him, slams his head through glass windows and display cases; he blasts him with a shotgun and then whips him with his leather coat as he crawls around on the floor in blood and terror. To finish him off, Ashe then pushed in his eyes with his thumbs. That's quite harsh for a villain who was basically a bystander - and he gets the most horrific death of all of them.

Nemo is found displayed in the Peep-Show booth with a blow-up doll staged in a sex act. In his mouth is an origami crow. He looks like the victim of a slasher flick as Curve inspects his ruined face. Moments later the phone rings and Ashe asks Curve, 'Do you know what they call a gathering of crows?

A murder. v_v

We see Ashe's blood-stained thumb on the receiver, knowing they've just been sunk in Nemo's skull. It's like a call from Michael Myers - and this is where the genius of the film glimmers slightly, amidst the secret language painted on the walls and the otherworldly lighting: Our hero is a serial killer - leaving calling cards, staging bodies, killing people in horrendous ways.

The villains then up the stakes and torture Ian Dury - the Tattoo Parlour owner - in a similar eye-related way, but somehow it's worse when they do it because Ian was a London Gent and Nemo was a Peepshow pervert.

Another moment of aesthetic genius comes into play now with Curve trying to quash his rising anxiety. In the book, the hit of the drug is described as peeling the top of your skull open and Iggy Pop plays this perfectly - however, it is seeing the club through the lens of the drug I like... the dancing girls, scampering at light-speed behind net-curtains, wriggling like pupa in cocoons, like something from Silent Hill. It's a clip that was in the trailer and it looks fantastic.

There's a wasted opportunity with Ashe in the club too, getting gunned down by bouncers with uzis and pistols. It's reminiscent of the famous scene from the original with Brandon Lee in Top Dollar's club - but it doesn't lead to a gunfight. This is not a major directorial crime though, as even Tarantino does a similar thing in Kill Bill: Volume 2 - setting up this big showdown to match the massacre of the Crazy 88, only to pull the rug from under us.

There is an interesting chase sequence, the highlight of which is a jump on motorbike from an overhead bridge to the street below, but it's cartoonish and looks bad.

The next sequence is great though, Curve's decision to face his death and the beautiful death, akin to Johnny Depp drifting away in Dead Man, but in this spectacular Storm Drain set, replete with 'Styx' graffiti, tossed marigolds and a sunken car.

The Kali fight is a weird blend of slapstick comedy and cringe-writing with an interesting moment where he scares the psychopath with his supernatural abilities as the grief takes hold. It's another example of a periscope of something good rising in an ocean of bad. What could have lurked beneath that surface, we'll never know - because instead we are treated to, 'Daddy's going to buy you a big black bird!!!'

Vincent then proves his worth with a fourth-wall breaking shot - genuinely looking cool after delivering a line that cringe.

The Church scene looks beautiful and the acting is fine, the old lady crying at the plight of the lost spirit before them, obviously knowing he is dead because she is old and wise. The dog wearing the skull mask is a nice touch and all the scenery looks fantastic.

I think I'm a little out with the chronology. There's a whole bunch of Mia Kirschner scenes where she just looks incredible, and the chemistry between Vincent and Kirschner is fairly good, though a little rushed and understated. I'm not sure they even kiss but we are to assume they are deeply in love... for eternity.

Ashe getting lost in the crowds of the Korn concert for the Day of Dead and panicking like a child lost in a mall - this is all good and fine. I like the building-climbing sequence though in the book he is attacked by two mute roid-head twins with bleach-blonde hair. They use their weight to try to pull him off the building in a kamikaze act to fulfill their duties but he defeats them both - and it is here that Judah kills the crow and Ashe plummets to the festivities below.

It's a very nice shot in the film, this drop. It looks good.

The plot then turns to shit. Judah consumes the blood of our little black-feathered saviour and becomes the Anti-Crow. There's then a weird kind of Anti-Racist moment with Judah lynching and then whipping Ashe like he was Officer Mark Fuhrman or something. For some reason Ashe is still alive - he's possibly just lost his superpowers like Eric in the first movie - but it's not fully clear.

In an attempt to stop Judah, Sarah (Mia Kirshcner) then stabs him but winds up getting stabbed herself moments later. For some reason Judah shows regret at this accident, like hurting an innocent person was the last thing he ever wanted to do - especially a nice girl like Sarah.

Remember the foreshadowing at the drug laboratory? The fact the palm trees exploded and the glass formed into the signature of the crow? Remember Curve's weird tattoo (which I haven't mentioned) and the fact that Ashe is brought back from the dead by a bird? Well, circling above our tragic scene is a murder of crows, and according to the blind wizard girl in Judah's tower (who is fleshed-out much better in the novel), they are here crying for the souls they watched-over...

...somehow Ashe knows they will attack Judah on his command. So he opens his leather trench-coat and they fly through it, somewhat inexplicably, and then seem to zip through Judah in the same way. He then starts blurring like a sprite dying in Tron or The Matrix, and moments later he is swept up into the clouds with the crows - where they are taking him, is not explained... all we know is, it's upwards.

Sarah then dies, and looks beautiful in death, and her death scene matches this painting she was doing - so it's like... she knew, man... she knew.

The movie then shows another crow flying away with Brandon Lee's ring from the first movie - Sarah was wearing it - as though it's going to pass it on to the next unlucky sap.

We catch a glimpse of Ashe riding his motorbike and moments later he seems to be meeting Danny in a sewer outlet, on their way to the underworld - Sarah being thoroughly absent.

See, this is the bitter thing that ruins the film. Sure the fuck-awful climax with Judah Earl's death half-ruined things, the b-movie acting and eccentricity ruined it a bit more - but what kills it fully is the absence of Sarah in the sewer scene at the end.

In one version, Ashe rides for eternity, trapped between the land of the living and the dead, never able to reunite with his son or Sarah. Now this suggests whatever spirit is watching over them, that sends the crows to avenege the murdered, is unable to fix what Judah broke - which is lame but plausible, magic is magic.

The version we see is Ashe reuniting with Danny, but Sarah is nowhere to be seen - leaving us to think they are going to separate locations, or Sarah is alone in the afterlife. She was a child in the first movie, she was an adult in this one - we care about her - and she is all alone, perhaps even denied the afterlife altogether.

It's just not right.

Anyway, it's a broken masterpiece.
10/10 : )