For many of us, The Crow epitomizes the gothic glory of the 1990’s, as it managed to capture the essence and angst of a decade that is now long gone.
The film was appropriately dark and gritty, featuring music from classic 90’s bands such as NiN, Henry Rollins, Pantera Medicine, Stone Temple Pilots, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Rage Against the Machine, Helmet and The Cure.
For me, there was and only will be one Erik Draven, and he was played by the late Brandon Lee, just as Sofia Shinas will always be remembered as the lovely Shelly Webster.
Yes, you can argue that characters like Sergeant Albrecht (Ernie Hudson), Gideon (Jon Polito), Top Dollar (Michael Wincott) and Myca (Bai Ling) are archetypes, and indeed they are. But for many of us, these characters can never be realistically represented by a new generation of actors.
It would be like trying to replace Harrison Ford in the role of Han Solo. Could anyone just step in and portray the reluctant Star Wars hero in some half-assed, rebooted, re-imagined space opera? Obviously not. And the same goes for The Crow. There is no simply no need to reboot the film, which remains a modern cinematic classic.
I mean, we all know the Crow sequel attempts failed horribly, with none of them even coming close to fulfilling the original dystopian vision of screenwriters David J. Schow and John Shirley, not to mention Crow creator James O’Barr.
The Crow: City of Angels was a halfway decent effort, but still a far cry from the first, and The Crow: Salvation was just embarrassing. And let’s not even talk about The Crow: Wicked Prayer, which was widely considered the worst of all four.
So Dimension, please keep your hands off The Crow. I know director F. Javier Gutierrez and screenwriter Jesse Wigutow only have the best intentions in terms of resurrecting the franchise, but this isn’t Batman, Spider-Man, Alien or Star Trek we’re talking about here. It’s The Crow.
