THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 5, 1996 TAG: 9609050615
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: 58 lines
IF COLORED LIGHTS were only enough ``The Crow: City of Angels'' would thrive. Yellow skies, sepia-tinted interiors and purple mist abound, but none of it is enough to hide the vacuous space that is at the center of this mess.
Shaky camera angles and quick cuts give it a frenetic look that might work in a three-minute MTV video but can't hold the interest even for this shortish (88 minutes) feature attempt.
Vincent Perez is a big star in France, but he's working against insurmountable odds to suggest the mystique the late Brandon Lee conjured in 1994's original surprise hit. For one thing, the mystique of a tragic promise unfulfilled cannot be recreated. The success of ``The Crow,'' sadly, was steeped in the fact that young Lee (the son of action star Bruce Lee, who also died in his prime) was killed on the set in Wilmington, N.C., by a freak accident involving a prop gun.
Perhaps the real tragedy of Brandon Lee was that he was forced to bear his father's name. In an interview just days before his death, he told me that the pressures were great and that he would prefer gentler films - or even another line of work.
Perez has been seen locally only in foreign-language films. He played Christian in Gerard Depardieu's version of ``Cyrano de Bergerac'' and co-starred with French legend Catherine Deneuve in ``Indochine.'' Here, not only is he saddled with repeating the Lee role but he also is made to hide behind bizarre clown makeup.
Technically, the role is different. He plays Ashe, a motorcycle mechanic who, with his young son, is gunned down by thugs. He comes back from the dead to seek vengeance, with the help of the vague powers of a crow. (Lee played Eric Draven, who came back from death after he and his wife were killed.) The lead character in both versions wears black leather garb and sports a bare midriff.
There are several one-liners about death, but none rises above the level of comic-book philosophy. The religious symbolism is anything but subtle.
Mia Kirsner (from the ambitious soft-porn film ``Exotica'') plays a grownup version of the little girl from the first film (although you'd never learn that from the film itself).
The head villain, Judah, is played by Robert Brooks with more stand-offish nobility than real menace. Most plug-ugly of them all is pop icon Iggy Pop, who plays a henchman graced with the movie's longest death scene.
The soundtrack album (which is represented only by three-second soundbites in the movie itself) is already a hit, which, coupled with the dark mystique of the earlier film, was enough to ensure a big opening weekend. The word should circulate faster than a crow's flight, however, that this mess is merely a fleeting, and unsubstantive, presence. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
MOVIE REVIEW
``The Crow: City of Angels''
Cast: Vincent Perez, Richard Brooks, Mia Kirshner, Iggy Pop
MPAA rating: R (language, nudity, violence)
Mal's rating: Two stars by CNB