David Boreanaz

Zac hated CROW: WICKED PRAYER... alot.

Hey folks, Harry here... Ran a review a day or two ago by a Crow fansite webmaster... Now for another point of view that was not nearly as kind. My feeling on the film is somewhere between the last review and this one. A bit of a love / hate relationship. I found worth in Furlong and Chong, to some of the ideas and some of the design. I found it a very mixed bag that I wanted to love and didn’t want to hate.

The Crow: Wicked Prayer

All I wanted was a halfway decent stand alone Crow that didn’t totally shit on the original film. My hopes were apparently too damn high.

On paper, THE CROW: WICKED PRAYER is a great film... we got Eddie Furlong - a kid who has all kinds of tortured angst presence in every film he’s been in. Then we have Lance Mungia - the genius behind SIX STRING SAMURAI. We also have a very spaghetti-western / Romeo + Juliet inspired story that seems like it should fit THE CROW mythology like a glove. Technically this should all add up to a very entertaining revenge film, yes? No... no no no. My god, no it does not.

NOT ONE FUCKING THING in this film works. The editing is a joke - and where it isn’t a joke, it’s 100% ripping off Proyas film... badly. The score is vomit. The acting makes one yearn for George Lucas to guest direct (yes, it’s that terrible).

Lance Mungia... what the fuck happened man?

SIX STRING SAMURAI was dripping with atmosphere and style. The only thing dripping from WICKED PRAYER is bird shit. I hate to be this harsh, but it frankly infuriates me that Dimension films has fucked the memory of Alex Proyas film and Brandon Lee in the ass 3 times straight now, not counting that god-awful t-v show. When I heard Lance Mungia was on board to direct this... I CROSSED MY FINGERS and anxiously awaited the result. Ugh. I can’t for the life of me figure out how this is the same Lance Mungia that directed SIX STRING... I seem to recall that film being highly original. Paying homage to Proyas is one thing. Stealing from him is another... this one was supposed to stand alone and not totally suck. Don’t believe the hype.

This film is so lazy and awful that it hurts. The potential was there, from the concept, to the actors, to the director... all the pieces were in place.

Eddie Furlong does what he can with a non-existent script and a total lack of direction. You can tell that... had he more to do, and perhaps a different director - he would have totally owned this part... but he doesn’t. Instead we are forced to laugh at him and his poorly handled transformation into The Crow.

David Boreanaz is a fucking retard here. Don’t get me wrong... love the guy in Buffy and on Angel. He’s moody, brooding and great at going a over the top evil in the Whedon-verse. Here, however, he is an overacting idiot... I don’t dislike Boreanaz, I think he could have played this part just fine had he been reigned in a notch or twelve. It’s bad enough when 666’s start appearing all over his body (to show us that he is most definitely gaining his powers from Satan himself... ugh) but when he turns into Satan - the film totally derails, crashes and ultimately burns.

Tara Reid... hahahahaha. Look! It thinks it can act! She’s painfully bad. It doesn’t help that she looks like an airbrushed Maxim centerfold throughout. Interesting that she’s obsessed with eyes throughout the film, perhaps because there is absolutely nothing operating behind her own. Nothing.

Dennis Hopper. God dammit Hopper, why? No excuse can be made for him here. He plays the single worst character in the film. A gangster-talking, satanic priest. Seriously, didn’t someone actually bother reading this script?

Let me give you an example or two of how bad and just plain stupid the dialogue in this film really is. At one point one of Boreanaz henchmen says "This is the fridge my momma used to lock me in". I understand the line... I hope, is supposed to be funny - but the scene actually plays in a dead serious tone - Lance, this is a CROW film... we want moody, sprinkled with dark comedic elements. Remember THE CROW when Top Dollar says "Kaww, Kaww, BANG! - FUCK I’M DEAD!!!". See that was funny and serious without crossing a line. At another point in WICKED PRAYER I swore I heard another one of the henchmen say "It’s time for Mantazuma’s revenge!". I felt embarrassed to be watching this thing.

The real problem with this film is it totally lacks chemistry between characters and any reason to care. The main love plot is honestly more complex than it needs to be, and it’s not at all intriguing. It tries to be more epic by throwing in a Satanic cult in place of the Top Dollar gang.... it tries to be more emotional by connecting all these characters together with subplots.... it shits on the original film in any instance it can.

This movie doesn’t deserve a theatrical release... it belongs in direct to video hell with the last two sequels. I REALLY WANTED this one to be good, but it just isn’t. It’s worse than anything I could have imagined from the guy who gave me SIX STRING SAMURAI (which I still love and admire). I’m not sure what happened here, but the result is the worst movie i’ve yet seen in 2005.

Suggestion to Dimension: If you INSIST on continuing this damned series, I got an idea for the next one. Brandon Lee comes back from the dead to put the wrong things right, killing the decision making guys at Dimension Films. Just an idea.

 Zac