1h 42m
Director: Alex Proyas

This film is a bit of a goth masterpiece and Eric's depiction will remind you a bit of The Batman in Gotham City.

It's a revenge flick where Eric Draven and his fiance are brutally murdered and later, Eric rises from the dead to execute the killers. It's implied that it's the strength of his love for his fiance that causes such a powerful resurrection which imbue him with super powers. I gather it's based on a comic book series and you can see a strong stylistic influence throughout the film which I'm assuming comes from the graphic novel.

Hopefully, you're starting to get a bit of a taste of what this ride is going to be like. He's an awesome wraith, if not a bit over-powered against the villains, the baddies are depicted as quite nasty so you find yourself rooting for Eric as he takes them out. You see the gruesome and callous murder in Eric's mind's eye once he's resurrected which serves as the main motivation for his character and gives the audience an excuse to feel satisfied by his blood lust.

Eric doesn't utter a word in the first 20 minutes of this film and yet the audience fully comprehends his motivations. Remember this is quite a popular film even with non-cinephiles (little to no dialogue is considered to be a sign of good film making). Hollywood please take note that you don't have to echo every action with a line of dialogue - 'show don't tell' really does work.

Eric is also a rock star. So he's an attractive protagonist as an almost invincible bad ass for the masculinity and he's also a talented artiste for those who like femininity. Appealing to both sides of the spectrum, you can see why he's so popular! And he murders for love which is noble in the context of this narrative.

There's something for everyone in what is essentially a super simple premise. The simpler the premise, the wider the appeal because it's easier to grasp. That this is still a popular film 3 decades after release is proof of that.

In the final confrontation they nerf Eric by making him mortal which raises the stakes. The baddies kidnap a little girl to lure him in and his police friend turns up as a Han Solo (appearing to surprise us when the villains have the upper hand). You recognise all these well known tropes no doubt and that is part of what makes this film so iconic.

It's another one where some of the shots don't really hold up too well because you can see every detail at a modern screen resolution. There are some really obvious models used for some of the city fly overs for example. Mostly though, there's a really good use of the contrast between the darkness and Eric's Joker white makeup with some smatterings of vibrant colour here and there to remind you of certain aspects of the story and the humanity in the supernatural character.

When I first saw this movie the colour palettes were considered to be a bit morose and not really main stream. These days it doesn't seem out of place whatsoever - so either the cinematographer was ahead of his time or the slick, gothic style of it has made it into a lot of modern film. Like I said at the beginning, it's feels a bit like The Batman in Gotham and you'll recognise the look.

The soundtrack to this film (credited to Graeme Revell) is obviously fairly epic (Eric Draven being a rock star character) with numerous awesome metal and goth tracks from that era complimenting several of the critical scenes in the story. Here's a link to the soundtrack on Spotify if you want to give it a listen: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6Fr7fLWuFwtDNoxCwUKkSQ

It's also on soundcloud if you don't want to sign up to Spotify and just want a quick listen: https://soundcloud.com/user-424904585/sets/the-crow-1995
(There's a few remixes in that playlist but it gives you an idea of the tone)

If you're interested in a bit more lore concerning the story and further information about the production then there's a featurette: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmaimTyH56g

If you didn't already know, Brandon Lee (son of Bruce Lee) died on the set of this movie when he was fatally wounded by a prop gun which adds an element of mystique to the film. This is just one of the elements that played in to the total box office failure of the reboot (another element was that it was sh*t!).

You should really see this so you understand what all the fuss is about!



Trailer: