The Crow: City of Angels.

It’s difficult to even ask Starkwell and Lovelock to watch a sequel to “The Crow”.  Will the sequel destroy the pleasant memories that they had of the first film?  Will it just make them miss Brandon Lee even more than they already do?  Given that the film is directed by a music video director, and that this was his one and only foray into 'actual' film… things don’t look so good.  BUT!  BUT!  The writer, David S. Goyer, would later go on to pen movies like “Dark City”, and the Christopher Nolan reboot series of Batman films.  So, there is still some hope that this will turn out alright in the end.  Goyer started his career writing Van Damme movies, and look where he ended up… maybe this was the turning point.  We’ll see.

[...]

[Girl wakes up in her super loft with Gabriel the Cat.]

Starkwell: So, that’s the girl from the first movie?

Lovelock: I guess she isn’t blonde anymore, also, she’s… a hooker?  That helps street kids?

Starkwell: If she wants to help street kids, it might help if she didn’t look stoned out of her mind.

Lovelock: Or like so much of a hooker.

[...]

Then it cuts to some gang of bad dudes, and a flashback of them drowning a dude and his son in a river.  All the usual stereotypes are there.  Creepy Asian woman, strung out dude with a goatee, red-haired guy with a camcorder, a naked Black Guy taking a hot shower and, of course, Iggy Pop… you know, the usuals.  I don’t mean someone that looks like Iggy Pop.  It’s actually Iggy Pop.

[...]

Lovelock: Of course she’s a tattoo artist.

Starkwell: Of course they call her “The Mistress of Pain”.

[...]

The girl playing Sarah, actress Mia Kirshner, seems to be approaching the Sara character with that, as Starkwell put it, “Zooey Deschanel style of acting”… which according to him basically means to constantly “look spaced out, scared, confused and bored at the same time all the time, also, to do it in a very hammy way.  Fuck you.”  This was before Zooey’s time though, so I guess she was paving the way for that kind of acting.

[...]

[Drowned Dude, named Ash, wakes up and emerges from the water like a Cirque du Soleil performer.]

Starkwell: How is he doing that exactly?

Lovelock: Is that the Crow or Criss Angel or Alegria?

Starkwell: Is there really a difference?

Lovelock: Compared to Brandon’s rise from the grave, that was wicked lame.

[...]

Then there’s a weird scene where Iggy Pop is dancing to an old Stooges song, and all around him topless women are licking each other.  There was some dialogue, but all that Lovelock and Starkwell took from the scene is that Iggy Pop sucks at acting, or at least that he didn’t care to try for the duration of this film.

[...]

[In a flashback, we find out that Ash’s kid wandered out in the street to witness a murder, and that was why they were both killed.]

Starkwell: What kind of kid runs out into the street when he hears gunfire?

Lovelock: A dead kid.

Starkwell: Dude, harsh.

Lovelock: And that’s why I don’t have kids.

Starkwell: Yeah… that’s why.

[...]

There’s a montage of Ash getting his gear on, and it’s as long as it is pointless.  There really isn’t very much character development, and by the time Ash finds the first gang member and explodes him, Starkwell already declared “seriously, who cares?” several times. It looks like Lovelock cares a little, because he does like exploding bad guys.

[...]

Starkwell: This movie feels like the movie that “The Asylum” would have made to coincide with the release of the original Crow movie, if “The Asylum” existed at the time.

[...]

Starkwell and Lovelock had a good laugh when they realized that the camera wielding red head was actually just Tom Jane in a bad wig and “Clockwork Orange” makeup.  But then the scene transitioned into a horribly awkward scene where he was jerking off at a nudey booth and the laughter stopped completely and forever .

[...]

[Iggy Pop finds Tom Jane dead in the nudey booth.  The Stooges play.  Again.]

Lovelock: Hey audience, look it’s Iggy Pop!  Let’s remind you every chance we get!

Starkwell: As if somehow landing Iggy Pop for the prestigious role of “Second in Command Bad Guy” adds credibility to your shitty movie.

Lovelock: It would be nice to have a theme song though, in real life... mine would be the song from "The Littlest Hobo".

Starkwell: ...

Lovelock: That's Hobo-Style!!

[...]

[Sarah paints in her enormous loft.]

Starkwell: Nobody owns that many candles, let alone has them all lit all the time.

[...]

[The score from the original film plays as Ash pulls his dead son out of the water and buries him.]

Starkwell: If they were trying to remind us of how much better the first film was… MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

[...]

Then Ash fights the Creepy Asian Woman and it’s one of the slowest and lamest looking fights ever.  Starkwell got up and left half way through saying “well, I’ve seen enough”.  Lovelock said he was sticking around to “see if they explode Iggy Pop while ‘The Stooges’ play in the background.”  Eventually there was an explosion involving Iggy Pop and his motorcycle, but no “Stooges”.

[...]

[Boss Man Judas kills crow, drinks its blood and apparently gains super powers?]

Lovelock: Well… that’s new… Also, lame.

[...]

[Ash impales Judas on a pipe, and then shoots a million crows out of his body right at Judas and disintegrates him and then the black energy (?) of Judas is carried away by said million crows.]

Lovelock: … Umm…

[...]

Anyways, Sarah dies, but at least Gabriel the cat lives.  In conclusion, from the writing, to the directing, to the visuals and set design, to the acting, and even to THE SOUNDTRACK… all of this feels like a very terrible remake of the first film.  An unnecessary remake made immediately after the first film was released.  This is just a shitty bullshit inferior imitation, with none of the heart, balls or talent of the original.  I guess it took Goyer a few tries before he was able to write something like “The Dark Knight”.  Yuck.