The Crow-A Revenge Film with Pure Gothic Atmosphere

The gothic atmosphere imbued within every minute of The Crow is unmatched. The rundown-looking sets, the practical miniatures shot in sweeping establishing shots, ultra-dramatic lighting, and rain-filled cinematography. Each piece of filmmaking gives The Crow a Gothic, almost operatic atmosphere unmatched by few other movies save for Tim Burton's Batman films. 

It's all in favor of an incredibly compelling revenge narrative. It is a rather basic revenge narrative, but it feels elevated by the genuine sense of emotion imbued within it. I felt for the protagonist and the tragedy he suffered through, and I felt compelled to watch him take his revenge. Much of that stemmed from Brandon Lee's performance, who, in his off-feeling mannerisms and line deliveries, gives off the feeling that he's a man bottling up his emotions, searching for an emotional release through his quest for revenge. The film also takes an almost operatic approach to the story that makes much of the melodrama inherent to a revenge narrative like this work incredibly well. 

The film does feel incredibly tonally disjointed at times. One moment, the film will be handling its revenge story with utmost seriousness, and the next moment, it'll be following the cast of criminal thugs who are so over-the-top and drop ridiculous one-liners as if they're in a completely different movie. It doesn't help that the performances of those supporting characters, such as the thugs, aren't great and play their characters way too over-the-top to an almost annoying degree. That goofy, incredibly cheezy tone is all over the film. While a part of me finds an inherent charm to it, it does clash with the dark, serious revenge narrative of the rest of the movie.

Despite some tonal inconsistencies, The Crow still worked for me due to the pure gothic atmosphere imbued within it and the almost operatic feel of its revenge narrative. The technical aspects of the film are on point and do an incredible job sucking the viewer into this dirty, run-down, rain-filled world. In an era of comic-book adaptations that feature increasingly more and more artificial-looking filmmaking, the pure practicality behind the effects of The Crow and the gothic cinematic look of it all makes it age far better than I expected.

Now Streaming on Prime Video in the U.S