In the City of Angels, auto mechanic Ashe (Vincent Perez) and his son Danny (Eric Acosta) witness a murder by drug dealers. On orders from the sadistic kingpin Judah Earl (Richard Brooks), both Ashe and Danny are shot and thrown into the water. Meanwhile Sarah (Mia Kirshner) in the years since the loss of her friend Eric Draven and his return as The Crow has moved to the City of Angels working as a tattoo artist. Sarah is haunted by visions of the Crow and Ashe's death and eventually finds him where he emerges resurrected by The Crow to exact his revenge with Sarah serving as a guiding figure for Ashe.
1994's The Crow was a sleeper hit, despite a troubled production history that resulted in original distributor Paramount dropping the film after the unfortunate death of Brandon Lee in a prop gun setpiece gone horribly wrong leaving many to wonder whether the film would be completed at all. An 11th hour rescue by Miramax who used then new compositing technology to finish key scenes Lee had not yet shot allowed the film to be released and the film became a sleeper hit becoming the first bonafide blockbuster for Miramax's fledgling genre label Dimension. The success of The Crow spurred interest in producers Jeff Most and Edward R. Pressman and distributor Dimension in a sequel and the group contacted James O'Barr who wrote the comic to pitch a concept, but as O'Barr had become good friends with Lee prior to his death he wasn't able to do so but did give his blessing on the film. Producers had reached out to fans asking what they'd wanted to see in a crow sequel with the fans stating they didn't want to do a repeat of the first film and to leave Brandon Lee's Eric Draven character alone and at rest. This gave producers the ground they needed to follow an anthology direction for the series with only the character of Sarah returning (now played by a different actress as years had passed between the stories in film) and music video director Tim Pope was hired based on his short film Phone. Pope and writer David S. Goyer set out to create a new story for The Crow that would be tonally and thematically different from the first one. When Pope presented his director's cut to Bob and Harvey Weinstein, they absolutely hated how far City of Angels differed from the previous film and demanded the film be recut to be more in line with the '94 film. The 160-minute cut screened for the Weinsteins was chopped to 84 minutes and upon release to theaters was eviscerated by fans and critics but did make just enough (though a far cry from its predecessor) that Pressman would try to salvage the brand with a syndicated TV series and a third Crow film. The unreleased director's cut of City of Angels has left a legacy of its own in a similar way The Crow did, but unlike The Crow being a somber and hauntingly beautiful final appearance from the gone too soon Brandon Lee, The Crow: City of Angels is a tragic reminder of a vision rendered blind by executive interference.
To start off on a positive note, the visuals on and production design in City of Angels differ from the first film's depiction of Detroit but still feel like they're set within the same dark and grungy universe. Unlike the gray washed out color palette of The Crow that tried to be (relatively) monochromatic to create a noirish look that respected the black & white artwork of the original source comic, City of Angels creates a decidedly different city. Unlike Detroit which was painted in hopelessness, ruin, and neglect, City of Angels is painted as a city of smoke, vice, and excess with the constant heavy layer of smog creating a vision of a city that is choking on poison (both metaphorically and literally). The streets are lined with broken glass and used packets of Judah Earl's drugs and it's a very visually interesting and tangible world created by the filmmakers especially considering their budget was less than their predecessor by about $2 million ($10 million if you count the money Miramax spent doing salvage work). The city is bathed in sickly yellows, greens, and oranges and anyone who remembers driving through Los Angeles at night in the 90s will recall those same colors and City of Angels does a good job of creating an alternate universe lens of this city using that inspiration.
Where the movie falters however is in the story as the plot is anemically thin (in the theatrical version) as we basically go through the same story as the first film only instead of The Crow avenging his fiancé he's avenging his son. Sarah is the only returning character from the first film and has aged since the last film, but there's unfortunately not all that much to her in this film as she kind of acts as a sort of mentor to Ashe (I guess) but it's very muddled and not all that clear. The villains are also not especially developed and are portrayed as repackages of the ones we saw in the first Crow only with even less to distinguish them. This goes on to the really confusing ending which shows clear signs of being a hatchet job complete with a tacked on happy ending that fits about as well as a square peg in a round hole and doesn't feel thematically connected to the imagery and foreshadowing present in the rest of the movie.
The good news however is there is a fan edit (that has the approval of director Tim Pope himself) called The Crow: City of Angels: Second Coming made by a YouTube creator known as Digital Clay Production (DCP). The DCP edit uses a mixture of deleted scenes, trailer shots, production stills, and written lines and direction from the script to make the movie more in line with Pope's vision and even being the patchwork job that it is, it's still infinitely more satisfying and thematically resonant with elaborations on the villains, scenes that were odd out of context and now make more sense within their original place, and a tragic love story between Sarah and Ashe that hits all the right notes and leaves us with a more appropriate ending that fits with the tone. Had this version been what was released to theater City of Angels probably wouldn't have topped the scores of the original Crow film, but it probably would've been somewhere between a 6 and a 7 on IMDb instead of a 4.7 (surprisingly it's gone up from the 3.9 it was a few years ago). Many still hold out hope for a proper release of this cut of the movie and stranger things have happened (how long did we wait for a proper release of Halloween 6's Producer's Cut?).
The Crow: City of Angels is a mess of a movie, but that mess is squarely on the shoulders of the Weinstein brothers and Miramax. Even in the butchered theatrical cut of the film you can see the artistry and craft on display and even some of the acting comes through despite more muddled characterizations. If you do decide to watch City of Angels I highly recommend watching the DCP edit (usually found on YouTube under "Crow City of Angels FAN EDIT") and despite it being rather rough, it's an infinitely better film than the theatrical cut and delivers a tragic but engaging story.
1994's The Crow was a sleeper hit, despite a troubled production history that resulted in original distributor Paramount dropping the film after the unfortunate death of Brandon Lee in a prop gun setpiece gone horribly wrong leaving many to wonder whether the film would be completed at all. An 11th hour rescue by Miramax who used then new compositing technology to finish key scenes Lee had not yet shot allowed the film to be released and the film became a sleeper hit becoming the first bonafide blockbuster for Miramax's fledgling genre label Dimension. The success of The Crow spurred interest in producers Jeff Most and Edward R. Pressman and distributor Dimension in a sequel and the group contacted James O'Barr who wrote the comic to pitch a concept, but as O'Barr had become good friends with Lee prior to his death he wasn't able to do so but did give his blessing on the film. Producers had reached out to fans asking what they'd wanted to see in a crow sequel with the fans stating they didn't want to do a repeat of the first film and to leave Brandon Lee's Eric Draven character alone and at rest. This gave producers the ground they needed to follow an anthology direction for the series with only the character of Sarah returning (now played by a different actress as years had passed between the stories in film) and music video director Tim Pope was hired based on his short film Phone. Pope and writer David S. Goyer set out to create a new story for The Crow that would be tonally and thematically different from the first one. When Pope presented his director's cut to Bob and Harvey Weinstein, they absolutely hated how far City of Angels differed from the previous film and demanded the film be recut to be more in line with the '94 film. The 160-minute cut screened for the Weinsteins was chopped to 84 minutes and upon release to theaters was eviscerated by fans and critics but did make just enough (though a far cry from its predecessor) that Pressman would try to salvage the brand with a syndicated TV series and a third Crow film. The unreleased director's cut of City of Angels has left a legacy of its own in a similar way The Crow did, but unlike The Crow being a somber and hauntingly beautiful final appearance from the gone too soon Brandon Lee, The Crow: City of Angels is a tragic reminder of a vision rendered blind by executive interference.
To start off on a positive note, the visuals on and production design in City of Angels differ from the first film's depiction of Detroit but still feel like they're set within the same dark and grungy universe. Unlike the gray washed out color palette of The Crow that tried to be (relatively) monochromatic to create a noirish look that respected the black & white artwork of the original source comic, City of Angels creates a decidedly different city. Unlike Detroit which was painted in hopelessness, ruin, and neglect, City of Angels is painted as a city of smoke, vice, and excess with the constant heavy layer of smog creating a vision of a city that is choking on poison (both metaphorically and literally). The streets are lined with broken glass and used packets of Judah Earl's drugs and it's a very visually interesting and tangible world created by the filmmakers especially considering their budget was less than their predecessor by about $2 million ($10 million if you count the money Miramax spent doing salvage work). The city is bathed in sickly yellows, greens, and oranges and anyone who remembers driving through Los Angeles at night in the 90s will recall those same colors and City of Angels does a good job of creating an alternate universe lens of this city using that inspiration.
Where the movie falters however is in the story as the plot is anemically thin (in the theatrical version) as we basically go through the same story as the first film only instead of The Crow avenging his fiancé he's avenging his son. Sarah is the only returning character from the first film and has aged since the last film, but there's unfortunately not all that much to her in this film as she kind of acts as a sort of mentor to Ashe (I guess) but it's very muddled and not all that clear. The villains are also not especially developed and are portrayed as repackages of the ones we saw in the first Crow only with even less to distinguish them. This goes on to the really confusing ending which shows clear signs of being a hatchet job complete with a tacked on happy ending that fits about as well as a square peg in a round hole and doesn't feel thematically connected to the imagery and foreshadowing present in the rest of the movie.
The good news however is there is a fan edit (that has the approval of director Tim Pope himself) called The Crow: City of Angels: Second Coming made by a YouTube creator known as Digital Clay Production (DCP). The DCP edit uses a mixture of deleted scenes, trailer shots, production stills, and written lines and direction from the script to make the movie more in line with Pope's vision and even being the patchwork job that it is, it's still infinitely more satisfying and thematically resonant with elaborations on the villains, scenes that were odd out of context and now make more sense within their original place, and a tragic love story between Sarah and Ashe that hits all the right notes and leaves us with a more appropriate ending that fits with the tone. Had this version been what was released to theater City of Angels probably wouldn't have topped the scores of the original Crow film, but it probably would've been somewhere between a 6 and a 7 on IMDb instead of a 4.7 (surprisingly it's gone up from the 3.9 it was a few years ago). Many still hold out hope for a proper release of this cut of the movie and stranger things have happened (how long did we wait for a proper release of Halloween 6's Producer's Cut?).
The Crow: City of Angels is a mess of a movie, but that mess is squarely on the shoulders of the Weinstein brothers and Miramax. Even in the butchered theatrical cut of the film you can see the artistry and craft on display and even some of the acting comes through despite more muddled characterizations. If you do decide to watch City of Angels I highly recommend watching the DCP edit (usually found on YouTube under "Crow City of Angels FAN EDIT") and despite it being rather rough, it's an infinitely better film than the theatrical cut and delivers a tragic but engaging story.