The Crow (Rating: B)

The Crow is a Gothic-revenge-action-picture comic book adaptation staring Brandon Lee.  It takes place in an evil version of Detroit ruled by thugs, where it seems to be mostly night and raining.  Eric Draven is resurrected by a mystical crow so that he can avenge his murder.  Since he is already dead, it seems that he is invincible, and he goes around killing the bad guys without mercy.

I found myself wondering what the point of the film was?  The main character is in essence a super hero who goes around killing people with impunity.  If he can't be killed, and he gets shot dozes of times without suffering any real harm, then where is the suspense in that?    Well, it turns out that he has a vulnerability and the bad guys figure that out in the last 20 minutes of the movie.  If it wasn't for this, then the story might have seemed flat.

Any action picture wouldn't be complete without a good cop and a bad cop and cute little girl thrown in, which makes the movie seem a little cheap,  but it does give the movie a little variety.  The movie works as a revenge picture because most of the characters are somewhat interesting.  That includes the good guys and the bad guys and a couple characters who are a mixture of both.

Brandon's Lee's performance is good when he is being all Gothic and vengeful, but in a couple of  moments where his character tries to just talk to people, his character seems inconsistently wimpy.

It is unfortunate that Brandon Lee died from a gun shot accident on the set of the film.   After this tragic accident, his mother and fiance both supported the completion of the movie.  Other actors were used to finish the incomplete parts of the movie.