The Crow: Wicked Prayer
a review by William the Bloody
This is the latest, and hopefully the last, in the Crow line of films. Your basic Crow components are there: a romance, both get murdered, he comes back guided by the Crow spirit to implement revenge. Yep. Well, if you want more in-depth... Jimmy loves Lily. David Boreanaz escapes from imprisonment with a little help from his friends, the self anointed "horsemen of the apocalypse" (Boreanaz is Death, of course.). Boreanaz and his posse kidnap Jimmy and Lily, gouge out Lily's eyes because they are magical and now Boreanaz's girlfriend, Lola, can use them. Boreanaz cuts out Jimmy's heart and uses it to replace his own, then the two ill-fated lovers are lynched. After their bodies are disposed of (rather idiotically, I might add), Jimmy comes back to life and has the sudden urge to wear black, make up and generally dress like he's going to a Cure concert for no apparent reason. Un-dead-ish Jimmy gets revenge on each of Boreanaz's henchmen one by one, leaving a flaming Crow outline at each scene. Only exacting revenge on Boreanaz himself is problematic because it seems he's using Jimmy's heart as part of a Satanic ritual to become The Devil Himself and he's already channeling power.
The Good: Erm.... Some of the music was pretty good with a nice Mexican-acoustic guitar thing going on. There was a fight near the end where with each blow Jimmy received we got a quick flash of he and Lily, which I sort of liked.
The Bad: Holy crap where to begin? Okay, let's address the obvious: DAVID. BOREANAZ. Yes, that's as in Angel on Buffy. His acting is outright terrible, and unfortunately, he gets loads of screen time. As a matter of fact, ALL of the acting was down right awful. Really. I think the screen actor's guild ought to be yanking a few memberships after this film. Not the least of which being.... Dennis Hopper. You heard me right; Hopper is in THIS film. Why? I have no idea, all I know is he has some of the weirdest dialogue I have EVER heard in my entire life (he actually says things like "what up G" and "homie" and is trying to sound like he means it! Uh, I'll take "Things I Thought I'd Never Hear Dennis Hopper Say" for 800, Alex). Now, there is the matter of the writing and the directing. All I can think is that someone saw "The Crow: Stairway to Heaven" and read "Good Omens", threw some scarcely interconnected ideas into a blender and decided to film as much of it in a slow-motion blur as possible in a lazy attempt at artiness. EVERYTHING in this film seemed to be caused because of reasons that are vague. When we are introduced to the "horsemen", we get these odd on screen title cards for them that tell us who they are, what they do, and their motivations. If these were added in after the fact because they felt we needed more background info, they didn't do a good job. All of their motivations were listed as "revenge," but revenge for what, we have no idea. As to knowing their names, well they each drive a vehicle with a fancy paint job that SAYS their names on them. DUH. Now, I'd also like to address the odd matter of religion in this movie. Part of this film's "deal" is that it takes place in part on an Indian reservation and that Jimmy and Lily's love is "forbidden" partly because she's of the tribe and he is not (well THAT and he apparently killed someone yonks ago, but they don't really fill us in on that too much, like it's not important or something, when it in fact ought to be LOADS important), and well Lily is the tribe's shaman and all, and yet her father is a Christian priest Indian with a Bible and everything? It's as though they have some sort of weird Christian/Native American spiritual hybrid religion going on that I just don't understand (seriously, one minute her father is praising Jesus, and the next he's doing a ritual dance to heal the Crow Spirit... what the heck?). Now, beside the love and romance, we have also come to expect some revenge violence in a Crow movie. Unfortunately, most of that happens off camera or in the cut away, and very, very poorly. I never thought you could kill a man with a bug zapper, but it seems you can. Huh. We see some of the same flashbacks two or three times, which gets boring and redundant and serves no real purpose seeing them once didn't fulfill. We also get flashbacks that show Jimmy and Boreanaz having a pre-existing relationship prior to Boreanaz killing him, but they don't delve too deep into that either, which is frustrating because I'm not sure if we're supposed to think that they used to be friends in prison or what the heck was going on, so why did they even bother to let us in on that at all?
Overall, this has got to be one of the WORST movies I've seen in the last year. The acting is terrible, the directing worse, and the writing most of all. All the characters are as flat as a piece of paper and not nearly as interesting. No one's motives are clear except for Jimmy's revenge for his own death and that of the woman he supposedly loved. Why Boreanaz's character wants to become the Devil Incarnate, we don't know. Why he has followers, we don't know. Why this movie got the green light, we don't know.
D. The only thing saving this
film from a flat out F is that it can be redeemed with some witty remarks
directed at the screen, turning it into an entertaining camp experience.