Dunst, in spite of delivering a pretty shrill performance, works well off of Mabius and portrays an interesting enough character who becomes more and more vindictive when she learns Alex is actually a hero and her heroes the villains. Bharat Nalluri is able to help this entry stand out by painting it with a darker blue hue and grain that makes “Salvation” feel more like a low budget horror film. Mabius isn’t perfect in this role but he does look and sound very menacing when taunting his killers and reveling in their pain. He even manages to horrify a pedophile cop and scares the ever loving soul out of two innocent girls caught in the cross fire. The movie doesn’t completely sink as the supporting cast actually helps it stay afloat, particularly Fred Ward who is a most despicable villain who is the obvious culprit.
The script Johannessen writes makes it apparent from the get go that only someone in a high position could pull off this conspiracy so it comes as no surprise when we learn he is the actual man behind the death of Lauren. Why she is killed isn’t entirely made clear. Is it because she witnessed the cops killing the man? Why then set up Alex instead of merely killing her and making it look like an isolated incident? Especially when she never actually tells Alex what she witnessed. And what was she doing in the strip club where she found the murder take place?
The performances are strong and Nalluri stages some interesting action pieces including one in a strip club where Alex faces down aggressive club goers and eventually a humongous sting where he battles with a horde of armed police men and is hopelessly outmatched. The movie obviously reaches by the final half when we learn that Ward’s character conveniently knows about the crow and knows how to stop Alex. You figure if this many people knew about the powers of the crow they’d enlist a genocide on the birds or at least capture them and make them do their bidding. Despite this convenient plot twist, the pay off is interesting as Alex and Erin have their justice and submit Ward’s character to electrocution in the very spot Alex died.
“Salvation” gets cut some slack because it watches a lot better than I originally thought it would. Since its release it had a hush hush VHS/DVD release and then only managed to premiere in syndication. I was able to finally see it back in 2002 on the UPN Network in New York edited, truncated, and with commercial interruption so I wasn’t really able to enjoy the experience all too much. With a better budget and a tighter script, this could have been the launching point for a reboot because it strives for originality and maturity avoiding the pitfalls of the sequels and just goes off on its own tangent. Rather than Alex possessing a trench coat he walks around in a prisoner’s uniform. Instead of guns, Alex wields the knife that killed his girlfriend, and he devises ways of killing the cops behind the set up in some exciting sequences.
Sinking down further in to the abyss of Direct to Video land there was 2005’s “The Crow: Wicked Prayer.” This movie was given a token one week theatrical release, and then pushed on to DVD. While it would technically be considered a theatrical film, it’s really a DTV release and very deserving of such a status. As with the other sequels I was only able to catch this a year after it was released except on premium cable during the day with commercials and edited heavily. Which is not surprising considering the quality of “Wicked Prayer.” If there had to be a moment where I knew this series was dead and buried, it had to be while watching “Wicked Prayer.” It’s not just a bad sequel, it’s a truly awful movie.
It’s only ninety minutes and yet it seems to go on for an eternity. As with the previous films it doesn’t hesitate to mimic the 1994 original by creating characters who are tapped from the well of the previous villains and heroes. I could go on about this messy ridiculous horrific piece of tripe, but I’ll try to keep it under fifty pages. Quite simply, “Wicked Prayer” is everything not to do with a sequel for this series, and it’s no surprise that after this was released, Dimension decided that it was time to approach a complete reboot with the concept and hopefully give audiences a brand new installment with new characters. Because in spite of what we’ve seen here and in the previous films, O’Barr’s creation still has some kick to it and can translate well in to a society who appreciates dark ominous films about revenge and bloodshed. What with the success of “The Dark Knight,” I think a new “The Crow” film would do well if Dimension leaves it alone and lets it ride on its own clout.
This 2005 sequel and the final legs in the original series commits all the wrong moves. It is poorly made, horribly executed, unnecessarily convoluted, attempts to be epic but fails, bears some truly terrible direction by Lance Mungia, reuses the exact same crow footage from the 1994 film (lazy budgeting), and casts quite possibly one of the most irritating actors who ever lived Eddie Furlong as its protagonist. Not to mention its main villain is played by David Boreanaz a man who saw success in the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” franchise, and then went on a slump for a good three years starring in obscure indies and then channeled his villainous side to play main baddie Luc “Death” Crash who is, you guessed it, a spiritual force of nature who is in touch with the mystical and paranormal and is guided by his lovely girlfriend Lola. She, of course, is played by the infamous Tara Reid.
I literally had to take a forty five minute break to prepare for the suckage that is “Wicked Prayer” because I vaguely remember suffering through most of it on television before turning it off but decided on sitting through the entirety for the sake of the article and you readers. The primary problem with “The Crow: Wicked Prayer” is pretty much everything but mainly it’s that the characters are so uninteresting that I never really cared if they lived or died. The three (count ’em) screenwriters take all of these plot threads and can never quite connect them. There’s a sub-plot about Jimmy and Luc’s relationship in prison, Luc’s quest for vengeance, Luc’s quest for world domination through Satan, Jimmy’s quest for vengeance, his town’s rebellion against the local polluters, and his romance with the pure Lilly who suffers a fate that plays out with the utmost hysterics because the two key actors who have to deliver the murder fail to convince us that the events before us are actually disturbing.