Customer Reviews

The Crow - Salvation (Dimension Collector's Series)

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I don't know what to tell you, for whatever reason this movie only got a token release in theaters and that alone will turn a lot of people off of this movie, but I could find little fault in it. THe plot has Eric Mabius playing young Alex, a man framed for the death of his girlfriend who is executed by electrocution on the eve of his 21st birthday. He claims his innocence and proclaims the involvent of a man with a scarred arm (shades of the Fugitive) but the cops can't seem to find him. Imbued with the power of the crow, Alex returns and with the aid of his lawyer and his girlfriend's sister, he sets out to unravel the conspiracy surrounding his girlfriend's death, running across crooked cops and sordid sex clubs. The DVD is a fairly good buy, the commentary is interesting and although most of the featurettes are under 10 minutes and mostly fluff material, they are informative, once. The DVD presentation is pretty decent, there is a little shimmer around the edges of the screen, but nothing serious and, although dark, the picture is clear. THe sound, possibly the most important facet of this music driven series, is clear, crisp and beautiful. I recommend this to fans of the series, but to others this might be a rent first type of movie. Still, as a fan of this series, I think that not releasing this movie in wide release was a true injustice to the filmmakers and the fanbase but this DVD is a step toward redeeming the studio. Enjoy.

I absolutely loved the first "Crow" movie. It was a tragic, gothic romance that absolutely moved me enough to buy it. This sequel to "The Crow" isn't without it's flaws, but is better than the lousy second sequel.

In this sequel, a man is wrongfully executed for a murder he didn't commit. Of course, when one is wronged through death, the crow comes back and brings him back to avenge his death, yeah, you get the picture. This time, the murdered girlfriend's sister, Kristin Dunst, is a major player in this movie as well as a couple of other actors you will be surprised to see.

Whereas the second Crow closely resembled the first, (and badly, I might add,) this one is different. It resembles a movie that can stand on it's own rather than a sequel. No one from the first or second movie is in this. However, it is more gory than the first two. One word: taxidermy.

Do I recommend this? Only if you're a die-hard fan. It's not bad, it's just for preferential taste only. Plus, you have to have a tougher stomach as well (considering one of the scenes has Kirsten having her mouth sewn shut rather than just taping it to keep her from screaming.) You'll appreciate the effort made with this one rather than the appauling second. Think of it like "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" apologizing for "Temple of Doom." Although unfortunately, it's not THAT good. But better.

Die-hard fans will probably like it, not necessarily buy it -- new viewers go get the original instead.

Hmmm....I will start off by being blunt and honest....this movie sucks. It sucks for a various number of reasons but none-the-less, I finished this movie and it had me pissed off that I was robbed precious time I could have been doing ANYTHING else. The acting in it is terrible...I mean Eric and Kirsten are decent, but I just think the script sucked, and it seems like everyone knew this P.O.S. was headed straight to video and said screw it. I LOVE the first Crow film, as well as the comics and such, and even thought the first sequel to be watchable. But I just do not dig the plot in this one. I know alot of folks that have also done reviews here make statements like "if you don't like this movie your not a Crow fan" and "just give it a chance" and a few other things too dumb to retype, however I will shoot straight from the hip and tell you while I may not walk around and paint my face or even wear a trench coat, I am a huge fan of the concept The Crow established. This film just takes away from that romantic gothic concept. You have been warned.

What an uninspired mess. Visually Eric Morbius is just boring to look at as the Crow. Character motivation is nowhere to be seen. We know who the main villian is minutes into the movie. Even the way the Crow goes about exacting his vengence is boring and insipid. I regret buying it and plan to just sell this copy on Ebay in order to make some money back

I was (and still am) a big fan of the original "The Crow," but since it's sequel "The Crow: City Of Angels" failed to impress me, I never bothered with this installment, "The Crow: Salvation." However, I recently saw this available for purchase at a dirt cheap price, and seeing the lovely Kirsten Dunst on the cover (who I'll watch in anything), I figured what better time than now. Having now seen it, I can tell you that I made a mistake in ever passing it by. "Salvation" gets it right. Whereas the previous movie was a redundant remake of the original, this installment goes a bit darker and bit edgier. One thing's for sure, it's a lot meaner, even going further than the original did at times. The first 10 minutes alone contain so much dramatic impact that it could be a movie in itself. Right from the get-go, this movie sucks you in and grabs your attention. Without hardly any exposition, we manage to make an emotional connection and an investment in our main character, Alex Corvis (played by Eric Mabius).

Alex has just been wrongly executed for the murder of his girlfriend, the love of his life. Since this is a "Crow" movie, Alex gets to come back from the dead and find out who killed her, and why. With a little help from his good-guy lawyer (the only person who believed him all along) and the sister (played by Dunst) of his girlfriend, he tracks down the people involved in the murder, in an effort to find the one responsible. It plays out in typical fashion really. I'm not gonna say the movie is unpredictable. Quite the opposite. But the difference here is how intense the situation is. The actors all portray their characters very effectively and make us love them and hate them, just as much as we should. The story is engrossing, and moves along quite swiftly. The directing style is definitely the major thing that seperates this movie from it's predecessors. It's not as gritty of a film. It doesn't have the "noir" look that they had. Instead, it has a more David Fincher-esque style to it. A style that many people associate with MTV and music videos. Even still, it works in the movie's favor, making the experience (although the story may be familiar) feel like something a little more fresh. The only complaint I find in this movie is the way Alex dispatches the people responsible for his girlfriend's death. The deaths should have been a little more cathartic than they were. The average death in this movie involves a gun. Come on, these people are scum! They've earned bigger deaths than that...

"The Crow: Salvation" had me satisfied on all fronts. It was quick moving, entertaining, and very engrossing. It's a shame it went direct to video -- due to poor test screenings. Who the Hell attended these screenings? It's hardly a shallow movie, and it's very well made and professional looking. And to think, I almost never saw it! Just because "other people" (i.e. the "test screening" crowd and critcs) decided it was a bad film. Don't let that deter you from watching this movie. It's the perfect "Crow" sequel.

The reviewers who didn't struggle with giving this lamentable piece of garbage the mandatory one star must have had lotsa Crow face paint on while they watched this waste of not just an hour, but a millisecond, because they didn't see it very well.

I wish I was multilingual so I knew the word "terrible" in every language to describe each scene of this movie. It's as if Lucio Fulci and James O' Barr got dead drunk, cut up splices of the weaker parts of "City of Angels", made a short film as a joke and then accidentally distributed copies of the tape to goth clubs where die hard Crow fans generated a fundraiser for a DVD cover and advertisement.

Love scenes have been done better on Lifetime TV. Eric Mobius looks like the young guy who gets picked as "Most Likely To Be a Loser" in his high school yearbook, and lives up to that prophecy very well playing the boring Alex Corvis--he belonged in that electric chair, guilty or not, just for the way he acts.


Kirsten Dunst looks like she's about ready to break out laughing at any time. At no point are any of the characters believable in any sense whatever. Fred Ward grits his teeth and tries desperately to look sadistic, probably demanding his payment in cash between scenes for his next contractually obligatory appearance on "As the World Turns". And everyone else I just...can't say how sorry I am.

After enduring this, I found myself nostalgic for "City of Angels". And I don't say that lightly.

...but regardless, this is still a relatively good movie. The third addition to The Crow series, this film does something which the second one (The Crow: City of Angels) failed to do - it does something different. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of The Crow. I've read the comics and the novels, I've sat through the syndicated television show, I own all three movies. Because of all these factors, many people would probably expect me to go into a rant about how horrid this film is, that it disgraces the memory of Brandon Lee and whoever responsible for it should experience a slow and painful death.

I'm not going to say that. Because, what some of these other reviewers failed to notice about The Crow franchise is that it's a very universal concept. Anyone who's been wronged can be resurrected through the mystical powers of the enigmatic crow. The last thing I wanted this movie to be was another rehash of the original. I didn't want to see yet ANOTHER guy with long, dark hair, an affinity for leather, and goth appeal oozing from every orifice. I wanted to see something different. In my mind, Salvation accomplishes this. The lead character has short hair, and he's dressed in prison fatigues. Right there, it breaks one major stereotype of The Crow. And that leads into my main complaint about fans of the series. Some (not all, mind you) don't want The Crow films to be a rehash of the first film. Yet, they also rant and rave if it's different. So how, praytell, do you expect it to be an original film if it's not allowed to be different from the first film?

Brandon Lee was simply marvelous in The Crow. That much is a given. Anyone who's watched it, even if they didn't like the film, they enjoyed his performance. He was truly born to play that role. City of Angels, the sequel, had a great actor in the lead role. Vincent Perez was marvelous. But, while it was still an entertaining movie, it was basically a rehash of the original. A rehash that lacked the magic that the first one had. Salvation is able to do something different. There's no crime lord in this story. Instead, the enemy is a corrupted police department. The hero in this film doesn't paint his face. Instead, the mark of The Crow is due to the scars he received during his execution.

I recall that one reviewer attacked this film because the main character, Alex Corvis, killed several police officers. What, exactly, did you want him to do? If you'll recall, they were shooting at him, as well. He simply acted in retaliation. This reviewer also complained that, "Brandon Lee's character never did this!" Obviously, the reviewer overlooked the fact that in the shoot-out scene at Top Dollar's in the first film, Brandon Lee's character grinned and said, "you're all going to die." Then, he proceeded to kill about twenty people to get to one. Yes, they were crime lords who deserved to die. But, who's to say that the police officers Alex killed were innocent? The story was one of police corruption. Who's to say that those cops weren't corrupt?

Even if they were innocent, it simply reflects the descent into madness that all Crows experience. Brandon Lee's character made this evident by sudden bouts of rage whenever he was reminded of his past. Vincent Perez's character would recite words that his killers said before they took away the life of him and his son. Alex Corvis killed some cops.

To my fellow Salvation critics and Crow fans, I implore you: open your eyes. Don't attack Salvation simply because it's not the original. Don't attack Eric Mabius simply because he's not Brandon Lee. There will never be another Brandon Lee. There will never be another The Crow. It happened. It's in the past. The time has come to move on. If you compare Salvation to The Crow, then yes, it will seem like a horrible movie. That's why you shouldn't compare them. And for Heaven's sakes, please stop complaining. It happened. It's done. You can't turn back the clock and erase this film. So, why don't you try watching it with an open mind?

As with many Crow fans, the first movie is one of my favorite films of all time while the second left a somewhat bad taste in my mouth. The reviews I had read here had given me hope that this Crow film would be better than the second. Unfortunately, it's actually worse.. It is basically a made-for-cable style vigilante movie that attempts to cash in on the Crow name. You've got everything here you would see on any generic late night cable movie..unnecessary gratuitous strip club scenes, plenty of gun battles, a thin plot, and an overabundance of lifeless acting.

You basically start off with Eric Mabius as Alex Corvin, a generic hero whose happy-go-lucky demeanor and undeveloped character make any attempt at displaying emotion appear completely fake. As in the other films, the hero is back to avenge his dead girlfriend. We have the usual Crow movie flashbacks..although in this case, thin acting and a lack of chemistry give the appearance that they had been together for about 2 weeks before her murder... There is simply no sense of anger or pain..or anything for that matter...

Then we throw in Kirsten Dunst, who just isn't given much to work with here as the victim's sister who tries to help Mabius. Fred Ward's made-for-cable impersonation of a bad guy was obviously a bad choice for the film. To complement the acting, we also are give a thin script full of obvious plot twists that just ends up being filler between the beginning and the rather obvious end of the film.

On the technical side of things, the filming and editing have completely murdered the sense of darkness from the first film that even ocassionally appeared in the second. The use of computer effects on cutscenes gives the film all of the substance of a music video or a screensaver.

In short, watching this film was like watching any generic made-for-cable action/suspense movie. If you're a fan of the Crow series, you may find that this film falls way short of your expecations.

Many people had reviewed this movie badly before its release (via test screenings) while others just wrote it off because it never made it to the movie theaters. I must admit this lowered my expectations a bit.

After viewing the film however, I must say that I enjoyed it thoroughly. It did a good job of utilizing the Crow mythos while giving as a "whodunit" story. It would have been easy to have the main character come back to life and just kill everyone - but first he had to figure out *who* to exact his revenge on, and that's the fun of the movie.

Eric Mabius does a great job with the Crow. His Crow revels in his powers, but is also forced to acknowledge the powers (and purpose) that brought him back. The supporting cast is excellent, providing one or two twists that are unexpected.

The DVD is cool, complete with a behind the scenes look at the movie and the addition of "Who's that bird?" - a brief look at the Crows themselves is a cute touch.

I was happy with this purchase and recommend it.

When giving this movie 5 stars, I am comparing it with the other Crow Sequels. If I could give the original Crow 10 stars, I would. I think Salvation is better than City of Angels and Wicked Prayer. Don't think this movie sucks just because it went straight to video. A must see for any Crow fan.