The Crow: City of Angels

1996
18
1h 24m

IMDb RATING

4.6/10

23K

YOUR RATING

Vincent Perez in The Crow: City of Angels (1996)

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Dark Comedy Superhero Action Crime Fantasy Horror Thriller

The spirit of the Crow resurrects a car mechanic seeking revenge for the murder of his son.The spirit of the Crow resurrects a car mechanic seeking revenge for the murder of his son.The spirit of the Crow resurrects a car mechanic seeking revenge for the murder of his son.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

4.6/10

23K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 2 wins & 3 nominations

Videos2

Trailer 1:00

The Crow: City of Angels

Trailer 1:07

The Crow: City of Angels

Trailer 1:07

The Crow: City of Angels

Photos60

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
While the filmmakers and studio originally intended to create a substantially different film to the first one (out of respect for Brandon Lee), Miramax ordered the film to be re-edited so as to resemble the earlier one as much as possible. Tim Pope refused and he, along with David S. Goyer, eventually disowned the film, as it did not represent their vision.

Goofs
(at around 22 mins) When Ashe is getting dressed in the leathers, we see his hand running up the side of his leg. Here he is already wearing the long leather jacket. A few minutes later, he dramatically puts on the jacket (for the first time).

Quotes
Ashe Corven: One crow, sorrow. Two crows, joy. Three crows, a letter! Four crows, a boy.
[flashback]
Ashe Corven: Let him go. He's just a child.
[now]
Ashe Corven: Five crows, silver. Six crows, gold! Seven crows, a secret never to be told.

Alternate versions
The following scenes were in the original 160 minutes long workprint version of the film, but were cut from the theatrical version by Miramax and Harvey Weinsten in order to make The Crow: City of Angels more like The Crow. Originally, it was very different film with lot darker tone and story, and lot more focus on ultimately tragic love story between Ashe and Sarah;
Sarah had a longer voice over in the beginning of the film.
There were more scenes between all the villains throughout original cut.
Opening scene originally showed Ashe and Danny being killed and more of gang's cruel mockery of them.
Scene where Sarah is in her loft and has visions of Ashe's death was longer and it showed her being more freaked out by those visions.
Scene where Sarah is tattooing her customer was longer and included him getting nervous and leaving to vomit in the bathroom, so she gives him some wine to calm his nerves.
Scene where Curve attacks Noah and Sarah and the following scene of Sarah breaking down in parking lot originally took place in this part of the film. There was also some more dialogue between Noah and Sarah.
Scene with Sarah and the Crow in her loft was longer.
While he is underwater Ashe remembers reading stories to Danny.
All the flashbacks throughout original cut showing Ashe and Danny were also longer.
After Sarah takes him to her loft and he wakes up, Ashe does not believe he is dead so Sarah takes the kitchen knife and stabs him with it. Scared Ashe than runs away as in theatrical version.
Ashe's last name (Corven) is clearly revealed as he runs back to his garage after his resurrection. The garage reads "Corven's Body Shop".
Scene where mad Ashe is trashing his garage in a fit of rage was longer, and had more dialogue between him and Sarah, including Ashe talking more about Danny.
Ashe originally had more of a "Poetic" dialogue, because he inherits a new personality after he is resurrected by the crow.
When Ashe is going after Spidermonkey at the Trinity Drug Plant, he takes Spidermonkey's gun and says, "Don't try this at home, kids!", shoots himself in the head and falls on ground. Then as Spidermonkey approaches, Ashe gets up, scaring Spidermonkey.
There was a scene which showed Ashe arriving at Live Girl building before Nemo.
After killing Nemo, Ashe confronts Holly Daze, the stripper who was talking to Nemo at Live Girl building. Ashe grabs her and looks into her eyes, seeing all the sexual humiliation she went through her whole life. He tells her that she should value what's left of her soul and to never come back "here" again.
After finding Nemo's dead body and Ashe's phone call, there was a dialogue scene between Curve and Kali, and when Curve walks out he sees the Crow.
In original version, when Ashe builds Danny's grave he does not burn his painting.
Originally, there was more dialogue and love scenes between Ashe and Sarah.
Sarah tells Ashe about her past, about Eric and the events of the first film and how her mother Darla eventually became a junkie again and OD'd, causing Sarah to briefly fall into drugs before going clean and leaving Detroit with Gabriel. She also tells Ashe about Grace, thus explaining Ashe's run in with Grace, which originally took place after this scene. Ashe also tells her more about his own past before she finally tells him that if he refuses to leave the world of the living, he will be damned.
Scene between Judah, Curve, Kali, and Sybil in the tower is longer and shows more of Curve's growing fear and paranoia and tension between him and Kali.
The other scene in Judah's tower is also longer, and establishes how Judah figures out he needs the blood of the Crow.
Curve and Kali's interrogation of Noah was longer, and Curve gets angry with Kali for murdering him, but she justifies herself by saying Noah dishonored her by calling her a bitch. Curve discovers Sarah's address in some business papers, thus explaining how Kali and the Twins knew where she lived. When they leave, Curve feels his crow tattoo bleeding and flees in terror, knowing he's next.
In this workprint/original cut of the film Kali's and Curve's deaths happened the other way around.
In the scene where Ashe is being shot by thugs at bar while Curve escapes, Ashe grabs the shotgun he took earlier when he killed Nemo and kills the thugs.
The final confrontation between Ashe and Curve was longer, with Ashe quoting A Rendezvous with Death poem to freak Curve out, which is effective when he screams "You think I'm afraid of you?!" before rushing at Ashe in a kamikaze move.
When Ashe blows up Curve's motorcycle with his shotgun, Curve is on the ground with his crotch on fire. Glimpse of this scene is still visible in theatrical version when Curve hits the ground. After the crash, Ashe tosses the shotgun away.
After dragging the injured Curve into the river, Ashe takes Curve's handgun and puts it into his coat. It's hard to see in theatrical version, but once Curve starts floating away his handgun disappears from his pants.
Scene where Kali and the Twins break into Sarah's loft was longer, with them shooting at her apartment door features, and Sarah trying to hide in the bathroom, where she hides Gabriel in a closet before Kali drags her out. Kali says that Judah has given orders for Sarah not to be harmed, but she still wants to see Sarah suffer so orders the Twins to destroy her loft and personally slashes Sarah's paintings herself.
The fight scene between Ashe and Kali was originally longer and had Kali using a 2x4, which Ashe dodges and proceeds to break Kali's arm. Ashe 'psychotic' behavior also continued in this scene.
When Kali is thrown out of the window, a shadow of a giant crow morphing into Ashe is visible showing that the Crow and Ashe are one. This shot is actually one of the shots of the deleted scenes which can still be seen in theatrical and TV trailers for the film.
Kali's death is different. She is still alive, though crippled and unable to move, due to her back being broken after being thrown out of the window, and she is seen crawling along the ground. Ashe comes out of nowhere and Kali begs him to kill her because she is in pain. Ashe refuses and smiles as he stands over her, telling her that he has already sent her to Hell
Sarah's scene with Judah and Sybil was much longer, and Judah reveals Noah's death to Sarah to torment her and his motivations in wanting the crow's power; he tells her how when he was a child, he had a near-death experience when fell into icy water, drowning and nearly dying and visiting Hell before he was revived. He enjoyed what he saw but came back with forbidden knowledge and compares it to what Hamlet's father said about the afterlife, leading to his obsession with the occult and becoming the way that he is, and now he wants the power to defeat death itself and uses Dante's Inferno as an example of what to do. To escape hell one must go to its center and to defeat death one must trade places with it.
Judah explains what the Camera Obscura is to Sarah before showing her the misericords.
Ashe's talk with the ghost of Danny was different. Instead of Danny saying to Ashe "If you give up now, we won't be together" Danny is pleading for his dad to come to the land of the dead, telling him if he keeps fighting they can never be together again. Ashe can't bring himself to abandon Sarah, so forces himself to refuse, cursing himself to live on earth for eternity (since he is already dead and hence can't die). But Danny warns Ashe in a dark voice, hinting at some other dark spirit involved in the Crow, before pleading with his dad one last time and saying a tearful goodbye before vanishing into the crowd.
After Ashe wakes up from his vision, he catches a glimpse of a small child-like figure in the crowd. and chases after what he thinks is Danny into the crowd, only to run into a drunk dwarf who mocks Ashe, thinking he wants sex.
Judah bursts out of the doors of the tower with newfound raw strength, using the chains that held the door to attack Ashe.
Ashe and Judah's fight was much longer and more personal, with more dialogue between them during the fight before Ashe pulls out Curve's handgun which he took from him earlier and unloads it into Judah's chest, who withstands it and then begins to lay a brutal beat down on Ashe, while the crowd think it's just a show that Judah is putting on for them in celebration of Day of the Dead. Ashe tries to punch Judah, but Judah crushes his hand.
Sybil explains herself to Sarah after freeing her, saying that the Judah she once loved is gone and could take over the world with his newfound invincibility if he's not stopped. As Sarah gets into an elevator and heads for the street, Sybil begs God to forgive her for her part in Judah's evil.
Judah was originally violently ripped and torn apart by the crows, his flesh torn from his body before his still living and screaming skeleton is taken away by the murder of crows.
After the crows have taken Judah, Ashe looks down at his hands. His wounds close up and the blood is gone from his mouth. By passing through him, they have "cleaned" his body. This explains the goof in the theatrical version where the blood on Ashe's mouth is suddenly gone in the next shot when he lays down by Sarah on the ground.
In original version, Sarah's death was longer, with Ashe crying the whole time. Ashe says he stayed on earth for her. Sarah gives Ashe her ring and tells him that "If two people really love each other, nothing can keep them apart.. nothing." Ashe cries. Sarah tells him that she'll wait for him, "Forever if i have to." Because Ashe chose Sarah on Earth over Danny in Heaven which led to her (an innocent person) being killed, Ashe must stay on Earth forever as part of the undead without her or Danny.
Ending was very different than the one which was re-shot for theatrical version. Scene where Ashe carries dead Sarah to the church was longer. Trailers for the film show parts of the original ending, like Ashe kissing Sarah when he puts her on altar. This ending also featured Ashe wearing Sarah's ring like Brandon Lee's character Eric did in the first movie. When he sits down, he is looking at Sarah's ring (also shown in trailers). The word "Forever" is inscribed inside of it. The priest from earlier in the film enters the church and, knowing that Ashe is walking dead, asks why he is "still here". Ashe replies that he has no where to go. Priest then asks Ashe, "What will you do now, my son", slightly angered Ashe replies (since he is cursed to walk the earth for eternity) "This city is full of shadows, one more won't make it any darker." He leaves the church to find the sun rising, and clutches the ring to his chest before the scene where he sees Grace and talks to her.

Connections
Featured in Hole: Gold Dust Woman (1996)

Soundtracks
In a Lonely Place
Performed by Bush
Produced by Tricky
Written by Ian Curtis (as I. Curtis), Peter Hook (as P. Hook), Stephen Morris (as S. Morris) and Bernard Sumner (as B. Summer)
Courtesy of Fractured Music (all rights controlled by Zomba Enterprises, Inc. for the U.S. and Canada (ASCAP) / Zomba Music Publishers, Ltd. for the rest of the world)
Recorded at Platinum Island Studios (New York) and Bush 8-Track (London)
Engineered by Rock (New York) and Pely (London)
Assistant Engineer: Vaughan Sessions
Mixed by Tricky at Platinum Island Studios (New York)
Bush appear courtesy of Trauma / Interscope Records

User reviews188

Review

Featured review

5/10

Good Aspects for a Sequel but Falls Short

This movie I saw pretty close to when I watched the original I believe right after college. I didn't think it was all that great and wasn't thrilled to give this a rewatch. I didn't remember much from it, but I will say there are some pretty solid names in it that I noticed when the credits were rolling. The synopsis here is the spirit of the Crow resurrects another man seeking revenge for the murder of his son.

We start this off with getting an off-color look at what happens to Ashe Corven (Vincent Perez) and his son Danny (Eric Acosta). They're murdered by a group of criminals and then thrown off the pier. Sarah (Mia Kirshner) was having the nightmare of what happened to the two. She's a painter and she's working on one of a man with many faceless people behind him, crouched and holding the body of a woman. Sarah is also a tattoo artist along with Noah (Ian Dury). Sarah also has an interaction with a homeless girl, Grace (Beverly Mitchell), who she offers to get food and coffee for. It should be pointed out that Sarah is the little girl from the original film all grown up.

The criminals that we saw earlier all work for Judah Earl (Richard Brooks). He's having a meeting of his best members where they kill one for not producing like they should. He tries to claim it was a bad batch of drugs and to prove this, they test it on that man. It kills him so they learn he was right. The others though are Curve (Iggy Pop), Nemo (Thomas Jane), Kali (Thuy Trang) and Spider Monkey (Vincent Castellanos). Judah also has a blind woman Sybil (Tracey Ellis) who is an oracle. She tells him prophecies to help keep him alive.

Sarah is brought to the pier where Ashe was killed and he wakes up in the water. She brings him back to her place to help him and informs him that the Crow has returned him to life to seek revenge for what happened to him. She paints his face similar to that of Eric from the original, which is similar to the theater masks from the past. Ashe first seeks out Spider Monkey to learn all those that were involved with what happened to him. Judah is alerted to this though through Sybil and tries to find a way to stop this avenging spirit.

I want to lead this part of here stating that I really like the original film. I didn't actually see it until after college and probably right before I saw this film for the first time. I could tell that there was a pretty noticeable step down even back then. Now watching this with a critical eye, I still feel similar, but I'll start with what I liked here first though.

The first thing is that I like continuing on with the mythology of The Crow. This film doesn't really introduce anything new though. The only difference here is that Ashe and his son were murdered instead of a man with his fiancé. I like that it is establishing that it can extend its powers to others in a similar situations. This is also interesting that Sarah is the same character from the first film, so it is good to have her as the bridge for continuity. Going along with the powers of this character, at the end we do see our character briefly losing them, which this being a semi-super hero/comic book film, you should probably know something like that will happen. Here though, we do see our villain becoming stronger and I like that they play with this to be a bit different. Having Sybil to relay the supernatural is something that works so we can get how this movie plays out.

Something that is both a positive and negative for me is where this movie takes place. With the name, I could tell that this is supposed to be Los Angeles. I did read that the look of the city is a hybrid of LA from the 1920s and 1940s. This gives it an odd feel which did work for me. The feel is also like we're seeing a legend play out. We have modern things like guns, but we have a supernatural force bringing back a man who's been killed and seeking revenge. The villains are listening to an oracle and I got a vibe of seeing like a Jason and the Argonauts in modern times. I also think that the feel of the city is also not realistic. It is the Wild West with no police being in the movie. The villains are running the city so it does give like we're seeing a Western town from that era where an unlikely hero needs to show up to clean it for the residents to finally live without fear. It does take some believability away for me though.

Going along these lines, it does have a lot of elements that I would expect me to really enjoy. I have laid out the things above, but regardless I found it to be boring. I never really connected with Ashe and for whatever reason it never held my attention. I think in part of that is The Crow version of him is just too powerful. By the time he becomes vulnerable, I'm already checked out. I also don't think that it does the best in building the characters up. The ending is fine, but nothing to really get me excited either. I just found this to be boring overall.

This is also quite shocking as we have some really good actors here. Pop is someone that just really plays himself and I like what he does with the role of Curve. Plus is fun to see Jane as Nemo who is a pervert. He isn't given a lot to work with and I thought Pop was just fine. Perez just doesn't pull me in like Brandon Lee did in the first movie. He plays the role okay with the physicality, but The Crow is such a tragic character and I didn't feel it. Kirshner is cute, but she feels underutilized as well. Brooks doesn't feel fleshed out enough to be this evil villain he's supposed to be. We get a bit, but it's a forgettable performance. Castellanos and Trang are all fine as well as Ellis, but no one really stands out.

That will take me to effects of this movie. We get some practical effects and we get some CGI as well. The practical effects are fine. No issues there. We do get some really good establishing shots to give us a feel of this city that we're living in and it really is comic book like. That takes away the realism where I feel there's only like 50 people living in this world that we're in. I think grounding this slightly would have helped. There is some really bad CGI in this movie as well, especially things that we get with the actual birds in the movie.

The last thing would be the soundtrack. It is hard for me to come down too hard. This is a 90's film, with a soundtrack that feels like the era. It just didn't really add a lot for me and I almost wonder if that is where a good portion of the budget went to. Too many of the songs are playing in the background with the words and it was distracting too be honest to following the dialogue of the movie for sure.

Now with that said, I don't mind what this movie is trying to do, but it fell short in my opinion. I like showing us that The Crow can give its powers to someone else who has been wrong and this film follows a similar formula to the first one. I don't mind the comic book feel mixed the Old West town, but it doesn't feel grounded and I think we need that. I was bored for the most part. Most of the acting performances are fine, but underutilized or uninspired. The effects are hit or miss and the soundtrack fits for what they needed, but was a bit distracting for me. I found this to be below average for sure and would avoid unless you absolutely love this series.

4.5/10