THE CROW: CITY OF ANGELS (1996)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

I don't often subscribe to the "lightning in a bottle" theory of creativity. It often sounds like the idea that creative works are born more of inspiration than the more mundane perspiration. But in the case of the 1994 CROW, James O'Barr original comics-concept of an undead avenger melded perfectly with the diverse talents of director Alex Proyas and his writing-team. The film's success spawned three more feature films and a TV series, and most of them are just OK formula-fodder. The first sequel, though, proves the worst of the lot, hurt by the filmmakers' attempt to copy the original only in broad strokes.

One of the sequel's big mistakes was to bring back one of the few surviving support-characters, the child Sara, as an adult character (Mia Kirshner), a tattoo artist who finds life in Los Angeles no more pleasing than her earlier existence in Dreadful Detroit. The fact that she simply trades one bad phase of life for another in effect jinxes the audience's investment in the film, much the way the death of Newt undermined ALIEN 3. There's so little advantage gained from using her as a link to the first "Crow-avenger" that writer David S. Goyer would have done better to start fresh. She only supplies the New Undead-- the significantly named "Ashe" (Vincent Perez) with some minor guidance in his new role in the scheme of things, as well as applying some rather inconsistent face-paint to keep Ashe roughly in the Eric Draven mold.

I don't know how responsible director Tim Pope was for the visual look of the film-- he claimed that the studio had interfered with the filming of ANGELS-- but he certainly got the nod because he'd proven himself as a successful maker of music videos, so I tend to think that for the most part the film looks the way he wanted it to look. But where Proyas' Detroit looked fearful and imposing, Pope's L.A. just looks mean and depressing. (Maybe not that far from the L.A. of this century...)

Goyer's other main idea of a major change-up is that Ashe is killed with his young son instead of with a girlfriend, though there's nothing all that compelling about the loss of Ashe's offspring. The lack of a romantic connection also gives Adult Sara a chance at a somewhat doomed relationship with the hero, which also proves desultory. The killers, just like the first film, are another gang of bizarre drug-dealers, led by a flamboyant nut named Judah Earl (Richard Brooks). And whereas Top Dollar had his weird half-sister reveal to him the secret of the avenger's powers, Judah has a blind prophetess, given the fairly predictable name of "Sybil." It's possible Goyer and Pope thought they were being deeply symbolic with their assortment of prophets and tattoo parlors, but all of these references are entirely meretricious.

On top of all that, the action scenes aren't that impressive either, while at the climax, Ashe reveals a new power just because it's convenient. So CITY OF ANGELS belongs to the long list of sequels that utterly failed to put across even a formulaic notion of a series-concept. After this, Pope mostly concentrated on more music videos, while Goyer worked on a lot of projects within the superhero idiom, albeit with extremely uneven results.