Seen here quoting Shakespeare...
...and making it her own.
She even gets to "Lady M" it for a spell:
Out, out damned spot
Holy cow, this thing is a mess. I'm christening it the first "Hot Topic Western." The general pace is like Oliver Stone had a seizure while directing a lesser FROM DUSK TILL DAWN sequel. The mise-en-scéne is like Rob Zombie's Satanic love child with the worst episodes of ANGEL. I swear it has more tangible connections to xXx than THE CROW, and it's supposed to be a sequel to THE CROW.
And that ANGEL reference isn't out of left field: this thing has David Boreanaz in full "Angelus" mode, wearing mesh shirts he must've stolen from Bruce Willis in THE FIFTH ELEMENT.
Like some BUFFY/ANGEL fans, I have a kind of love/hate relationship with David Boring-anz (as I occasionally refer to him). He's serviceable as the stoic, mostly emotionless Angel (and as the puppet version)––but when he goes into "psycho vamp" mode and becomes "Angelus," he's acting beyond the limits of his wheelhouse and can't quite pull it off. But I kind of like that, too, because there's certainly a kitsch value to it.
I like it in a slightly different sense than Tara Reid "likes" his offensive Native American headband, is what I'm saying.
Boreanaz is the film's villain, a.k.a "Luc Crash," a.k.a "Death," a.k.a. "Satan."
Here's the whole macabre outfit. Note: pleather pants and Satanic belt buckle.
Because he yearns to be Satan (and does, indeed, eventually become him), he has a biker gang named after the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse that he exclusively feeds with "Devil"-themed food.
I obviously approve of this, wholeheartedly.
Elsewhere, we have Danny Trejo as a kind-hearted preacherman (this only adds to the lesser-DUSK TILL DAWN sequel vibe):
Danny Trejo––not playing a criminal for once!
Marcus Chong (a.k.a. "Tank" from THE MATRIX) as "War," one of Boreanaz's horse/henchmen,
who, dressed in a red jumpsuit and strapped with dynamite, really reminded me of those annoying, dynamite-slinging enemies from the legendary arcade game FINAL FIGHT:
Dennis Hopper as "El Niño," a Satanic High Priest who calls everybody "homey" for no discernible reason and has Macy Gray as one of his henchwomen:
And finally Edward Furlong as local loser "Jimmy Cuervo" who is transformed by death into the revenge-seeking "The Crow,"
whereupon he wields a baseball bat like a lightsaber
Ohhhhh yeah.
This movie is so perfectly awkward, absurdly incomprehensible, and nigh unwatchable, that we require a bad comedy cliché as our exit strategy. Who will step forward and deliver said cliché?
There we go. My feelings exactly, Boreanaz!
Man, director Lance Mungia showed such promise on Six String Samurai. I don't know what happened here.
ReplyDeleteDead guy kills the guys who killed him and a love one. It's not rocket science guys.
Jack,
ReplyDeleteYeah, it definitely had all the ingredients of a fun, straight-to-video flick but ended up being quite painful––at the very least it should have been as fun as FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 3, Ambrose Bierce notwithstanding.
I feel like this was a terrible porn parody that had all the dirty sex edited out of it.
ReplyDeleteTo add insult to injury, did you catch the godawful mariachi rendition of Revell's classic score motif?
For what it's worth however, can I say I absolutely love Crow City of Angels? I'm aware it was hacked to shreds by the Weinsteins and would much prefer to see the director's original intended vision, that I'm sure houses a far more nuanced (and less manic) performance from Vincent Perez, however it was still a phenomenal work of music video surrealism.
I still can't tell if Iggy Pop is awful or awesome in it. The scenes where he asks his friends what they see in his tattoo are borderline abysmal, yet when he's on his bike, bellowing "YOU THINK I'M AFRAID" in strung-out Stooges refrains is absolutely magnificent in its caustic self-implosion.
They literally don't make them like they used to (the new reboot trailer is evident enough to prove that), and whilst City of Angels was all style over substance (especially once it was hacked to shreds), I can't ever discredit that style, which was absolutely gorgeous. Taking place in a miniature gothic microcosm snow-globe fantasy, just as the original Crow did with rain, Batman Returns did with snow, and the City of Angels does with smoke, its the type of graphic novel surrealism made with practical effects we'll never ever see again.
Crow Wicked Prayer in comparison was like a straight-to-streaming Tremors sequel (or as you rightly put it, a terrible low-budget entry into the From Dusk Til Dawn series).
Where else can you witness an Oscar-winner utter the phrase "Well wicked-ass props to you Mr OG, and thanks for representing all the homeboys." and be utterly perplexed as to whether he was committed or not?
Who says it can't rain all the time?
AnonyMike,
ReplyDeleteHeh, totally, and I seem to remember the Revell theme being butchered. I never saw THE CROW: CITY OF ANGELS, and now I feel like I must! Seems like it's worth it for Iggy Pop alone. I saw the trailer for the reboot––seems they're trying to place it in more of a Christopher Nolan realm than a Tim Burton-y/Alex Proyas one.