There is no such thing as superhero fatigue. Instead, there’s a profound lack of comic book movies with anything interesting or original to say.
These days, the Marvel Cinematic Universe would be better off throwing out its old playbook and taking a few pages from a masterpiece that came out over three decades ago. That masterpiece was The Crow (1994), and you can now stream this cult comic classic for free on Tubi.
It Can’t Rain All the Time
The plot of The Crow is that a rocker’s fiancée is a victim of SA, and he is killed by a violent gang that rules the streets of Detroit. The rocker is brought back to life one year later as a nearly unstoppable vigilante, and he wastes no time exacting revenge on the gangbangers who tried to kill him with one over-the-top kill after another. With the police closing in and a gang leader discovering his weakness, our hero races against time to finish his righteous quest of vengeance before he dies all over again.
The cast of The Crow includes some of the biggest talents in genre filmmaking, including Ernie Hudson (best known for Ghostbusters) as a keen-eyed cop who (Commissioner Gordon-style) strikes up an unlikely alliance with our vigilante. Meanwhile, Michael Wincott (best known for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) plays a sleazy gang lord who becomes one of the most memorable villains to ever grace the silver screen. He has underlings played by David Patrick Kelly (best known for Twin Peaks) and Tony Todd (best known for Candyman), both of whom help bring these quirky criminals to such vivid life.
Tragedy Claims the Lead Actor’s Life
While there are many other great performances (including Rochelle Davis as a hilariously precocious young girl who knew our vigilante before he died), the best performance in this movie comes from Brandon Lee in the lead role. He perfectly embodies the dualism of his comic book character, portraying his vigilante as equal parts vulnerable and violent. He also effortlessly elevates an already-solid script with line readings that will have you quoting this movie for the rest of your life.
Tragically, The Crow was Lee’s last film because he was killed on set by a freak accident involving an improperly loaded gun. Producers were able to finish filming, but Lee’s death cast a weird spectre over the film, especially considering that his character (pre-resurrection) is killed early on in the film in the very scene that claimed the actor’s life. However, Lee gave arguably the best performance of his entire life, transforming The Crow into a perfect, posthumous celebration of his immense onscreen talent.
Devil’s Night At the Box Office
The Crow Film Series
The Crow may be an unconventional comic book movie, but it resonated with ‘90s audiences looking for a weirder, grittier alternative to films like Batman Returns. Against a budget of $23 million, this movie earned $94 million, which was enough to get the studio to invest in a franchise. Unfortunately, awful writing and the absence of Brandon Lee led to four awful sequels before The Crow got an equally terrible reboot (seriously, the less said about this stinker, the better).
Long before the MCU ever graced the silver screen, The Crow wowed critics with its stylish superhero charisma. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a rating of 88 percent, with critics praising the movie’s extravagant combination of killer action and gothically glamorous vibes. They also singled out the late, great Brandon Lee for a relentlessly powerful performance that gives The Crow such a soulful personality.
A Superhero Movie Like Nothing Before or Since
As a lifelong comic fan, I’ve always enjoyed The Crow for how it humorously skewers the genre…nearly a decade and a half before the MCU began constantly winking at the camera, this spooky film subverted all our expectations for superhero cinema. Sure, you get all the aesthetic trappings of a comic book movie, including a larger-than-life hero, colorful villains, and epic action sequences. But you also get a movie that has powerful things to say about the genre, making it the rare superhero film driven by passion and creative vision rather than dollar signs.
Will you agree that The Crow is a perfect superhero film with more originality than Marvel and DC combined, or is this one movie you’d rather throw out the window? You won’t know until you don your best Hot Topic goth gear and stream it for free on Tubi. Just do yourself a favor and avoid the sequels and reboot unless you want to see how greedy Hollywood executives transformed the greatest comic movie into the worst franchise in film history.
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