The Crow: Wicked Prayer

Is criticism really called for with a straight-to-video heap like this? Undiscerning goths still carrying a torch for the original aren't likely to care about the unusually low quality, while anyone else is probably smart enough to give it a pass. But for those who must know, let the record show that Edward Furlong is no Brandon Lee, that his adversaries are a barely differentiated quartet patterned after the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and that their leader, David Boreanaz, is set on becoming the son of the devil. You could give the production points for setting it during a battle between miners working a toxic site and Indians shutting it down to open a casino, but motions towards complexity die in a hail of bad dialogue and production values so low as to be undetectable by radar. That director Lance Mungia has no eye is par for the cheapo course, but the constant mugging of the cast (especially Boreanaz) is strictly for hardened camp fanciers, and the pretentious talk of good and evil will have Joseph Campbell spinning in his grave. It's a pathetic shambles, big on nasty talk but unable to deliver even minor thrills. There's a mountain of pointless extras, with two commentaries featuring Mungia, flanked first by producer Jeff Most and second by the DP, editor and sound designer. They're both highly deluded affairs, with Mungia going on about how his pile of clichés adds up to "something that's never been done before." Also included are a "making of" featurette that's similarly self-deceived, two brief snippets of Mungia and various production members discussing the project and some dressed-up cars, a storyboard-to-screen scene comparison, two deleted scenes, an airy-fairy visit with composer Jamie Christopherson, a gallery of stills, and a slideshow of production photos. (Dimension/Buena Vista)