MovieChat Forums > The Crow: Wicked Prayer (2005) Discussion > The 'Brandon Lee' act...

The 'Brandon Lee' act...

posted 14 years ago by Carnelian-Zebra-Lily
7 replies | jump to latest

Is it just me or was this guy literally just mirroring Brandon Lee's performance from the original movie in a way?

Is this what all the other CROWS do in the other movies? I'd be interested to know.

The first and original Crow movie should have just been left as a first and original...possibly a sequel, but no more than that.

WICKED PRAYER was bad...David Boreanaz [whatever} needing to get married to this weird blonde witch in order to get possessed by the devil so that he could take over the world in a white tuxedo?

And then the latest CROW, the strange little man/girl has to stop him, whilst sporting all of these 'provoked rodent' facial expressions and screaming '*beep*' something with almost everything he said and laughing for no reason other than Brandon Lee did alot of laughing in the original??
I mean COME ON he can't really be having fun...can he?
Isn't a personal vendetta enough? Now Crow-boy needs to be a planet-saving anti-christ-fighting superhero in order to acheive 'champion' status in the eyes and hearts of the audience??

It was somewhere between laughable and painful to watch, but worth discussing in relation to other Crow movies...

It made sense for Brandon Lees character Eric to don a gothic appearance in the original Crow because he was a rock star, but whats the excuse for the man/girl in this movie, or all the other ones??

Sadly the whole movie formula has become a bit predictable so less exciting, interesting or moving...
Someone makes a crow movie and immediately you know its gonna be about two ideal lovers {or a couple of people who love each other in general} who both get brutally and unfairly murdered, and then the boyfriend returns from beyond the grave to don skintight black clothing, leather, messy hair and gothic makeup and then go on a vengeance driven killing spree...a massacre of predictably very nasty people with guns...then the crow-boy makes friends with the cops, the villains discover the crow is his weakness, crow-boy nearly tops himself off but manages to complete his killing spree and then theres some uplifting music at the close of the movie when crow-boy and his angelic dead girlfriend are reunited...angelic-dead-girlfriend having no feelings of vengeance or unease whatsoever...

Sorry, I don't mean to sound as if I'm insulting the storyline of the original Crow, because it really worked for the first movie, but I don't think it works for WICKED PRAYER, which was almost like a really bad remake instead of a story in its own right.

I believe that what doesn't kill you only makes you STRANGER.

[–] kangamoo66 14 years ago

I do agree with you that The Crow should have been left as a one-off, but it's unfair to expect the same quality anyway. Wicked Prayer is laughably bad, but I do like it - it doesn't really take itself seriously.

For the laughing thing: I know that if I was immortal and people kept trying to kill me, I'd be laughing all over the place, regardless of whether other people had done it too. When he laughs during the fight with Luc in the graveyard, it's much more manic than 'Wow I just kicked some guy into a hole that's really funny!'
I think the 'anti-christ' thing was just incidental. He would have gone after Luc and the others anyway, but the writers probably wanted his enemy to give him a run for his money - like when Eric was on the ropes at the end of The Crow.
I haven't seen the other two sequels, but Jimmy put on the ''gothic appearance'' because it was his costume for Rave'n Fest and it was how Lily liked him best; he put it on for her. And the only 'provoked rodent' facial expressions I can think of come at the end, when he has to decide whether to kill Luc mercifully or not, so I think that could be excused.
Well, they're not really ideal lovers, are they? No-one likes them being together and they have to sneak away to be with eachother. Everyone thought that he killed her, and he had to prove otherwise.
The villains did discover his weakness, but the crow was also restored to full power - that's different from The Crow.
And 'killing-spree' is a bit harsh. Eric did go on a bit of a spree, but Jimmy killed only those directly responsible (as far as I can remember - please correct me if I'm wrong!). And Lily obviously had no trouble accepting him after his murder when they were alive, so why would she at the end? All the damage that Jimmy did, living and dead, was for her benefit and to keep her safe.

I'm only giving my opinion here - some bits of the film do actually make me cringe!

I'm shocked, shocked! to find that gambling is going on in here!

[–] Carnelian-Zebra-Lily 14 years ago

Wow..! That changes everything.

Thank you for that because to be honest I saw this on TV not so long ago and I missed the begining, so its probably not right at all of me to speak about it the way I have without knowing all of the facts... Without even knowing crow-boys name...Apologies.

I haven't seen the other two sequels either.

And your right about the laughing thing...It just seemed for a while to me that there was a similarity so deliberate that it was kinda excruciating. I would have liked to see a different reaction to resurection/vengeance...etc
I guess I'm just a die-hard fan of the original and thats the one I'll prefer for now, but my opinions may change if and when I see the other films.

Now that I know the whole story [thanks to you] I respect it, but I think it would have been better without the whole anti-christ thing. I think satanism is going a bit too far...human brutality is enough, and its all thats really needed to pose a genuine threat and a genuine evil for the character to overcome, rather than a sort of mystical tacky-diabolical force. That sort of takes the story to epic heights [were talking the end-of-the-world here] that the movie then fails to deliver, and all we see is the 'villain' cursing God in a silly voice - thats when it becomes tacky. Because its suddenly not about the characters, or what happened... Its suddenly moved onto something much bigger...impossibly bigger! And too big for this story.
Almost as if the film-makers/writers decided to tackle something too big to sophisticate...

But then I guess the whole idea of the character being returned to life by a crow is mystical enough anyway.

Also, what I meant by 'ideal lovers' is that when their together things seem almost perfect...sunshine and holding hands and stuff...and then their almost perfect world is destroyed by an almost total opposite. But thats probably just me not knowing the whole truth again.

I believe that whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you STRANGER.

[–] kangamoo66 14 years ago

Hahaha the first thing I thought when I saw you'd posted again was 'Oh god, I'm going to get torn a new one!' I want to thank you for being so fair about it! I'm probably the same when it comes to the comparison of The Crow and Wicked Prayer, but I don't even think of them as occupying the same space - The Crow was a near-perfect film that was just amazing whereas Wicked Prayer....

Oh, you're totally right about the anti-christ thing, but I reckon it elevates it from 'bad' to 'b-movie bad', where you're watching it and there's a voice in your head going 'This is insanely bad, what are you doing watching it?' but you still think it's great fun!
(I was just thinking about the whole ''world-saving crow'' thing, and I thought it was really funny that in the movie Jimmy doesn't even acknowledge the fact that Luc has become Satan! I reckon if it had been someone else becoming the anti-christ he probably would have let them get on with it. )
Yeah I suppose I get the concept about them being 'ideal lovers' - things probably did feel perfect when they were together - but there was more of an emphasis on the prejudices that Jimmy had to overcome to become adequate for Lily's family; which was unfortunately only achieved with her death.

It's like, (I can't quite articulate what I'm trying to say!) I love The Crow, and I love Wicked Prayer, but in two TOTALLY different ways. In my head, neither are connected.

I'm shocked, shocked! to find that gambling is going on in here!

[–] Carnelian-Zebra-Lily 14 years ago

No worries , I'm finding it really cool to be discussing the movie with a non-aggressive IMDB user! I mean you could have completely attacked me for my lack-of-awareness, but you didn't so thanks for enlightening me instead.

Wicked Prayer is certainly a b-movie, but thats not neccessarily a negative thing because sometimes you just NEED anything between a b-movie and a really bad b-movie - I agree with you {I shouldn't have slated Wicked Prayer before] its great to watch something just for grins - not everything can be or should be taken seriously. I wouldn't call the first Crow a b-movie though. Theres just something about the first movie that seems alot more genuinely violent, and thus sincere. There a number of reasons why I like the original Crow, but not all of them are psychologically weighty. Besides its emotional storyline, its also a very stylish and exciting movie...graphic, gloomy, slightly surreal...cool, in short!

I haven't seen the other movies, I understand there are two more? 'City of Angels' with Vincent Perez and another one...I've forgotten its name but it has Kirsten Dunst in it..? I know that 'city of angels' is about a father and son instead of lovers, and I'm not sure what the other ones about, but it goes to show that not all the movies have to be about lovers, which is probably why Wicked Prayer seemed like a reflection of the original, the similarity between them being the vengeance-driven boyfriend. But I guess the situation is very different in Wicked Prayer. Since I didn't see the start of the movie, I didn't see Jimmy and Lily's life together before they were murdered, so I didn't see the family situation etc. Thats obviously made a huge impact on my perception of Wicked Prayer, but since you've told me more about it I do have a new respect, particularly for those characters...its just when Luc became the devils 'host' and began calling himself Lucifer...Now that you mention Jimmy's almost blase attitude to Luc becoming the devil incarnate it is pretty funny! I actually found Luc amusing - when he and Jimmy were fighting and Luc said something about God being a *beep* for not giving him anything!
Also during the marriage he fell over, and then leapt back up into his new 'brides' arms like a toy!
His deranged behaviour in general made me break up a bit!

You know, I heard recently that a remake of the original may be made...
I'm not sure if theres anything definate about that, but if there is I really don't see WHY somebody needs to make a remake of the original...
How can you top Brandon Lee in the original? What more can be added to it? Does it need to be improved/remade??
I don't think so personally.

I believe that whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you STRANGER.

[–] kangamoo66 14 years ago

Haha me too! I always see it on these boards - ''Your opinion is different to mine and therefore you are wrong.'' - and I just think it's so idiotic! (Although I was telling a friend of mine about The Crow a few days ago and when she went 'Ugh. Brandon.' I very nearly kicked her out of my house)

Oh I wouldn't call The Crow a b-movie either...although it also doesn't seem like a non-b-movie! It's an almost pitch-perfect film: I wanted to see it when I was about 8 but didn't get to see it until I was 16 - but when I did... it was as if my life was suddenly complete!
Yeah the other one is called Salvation - I haven't seen it or City of Angels. I just looked up the synopses on this - Salvation is about a man who was framed for his girlfriend's murder, is executed and revived to get his revenge. So yeah, Wicked Prayer's plot actually is very close to The Crow's.
And what about Dennis Hopper as El Nino? That's the best example of the "this is awful, but let's run with it" vibe that WP is made of!

There is no need for a remake. Full stop. I'll be surprised if anyone goes to see it, to be honest.

Oh, your tagline reminded me of this - I found it on Youtube about a week ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTbmdXNEm14

I'm shocked, shocked! to find that gambling is going on in here!

[–] Carnelian-Zebra-Lily 14 years ago

I have experienced it also, but I try not to be like that myself. There are loads of people here who make IMDB pretty tedious coz you come here wanting to discuss or debate something and they want to argue. They get offended real easy!

I haven't watched your youtube link yet [am about to], before I do on the subject I think The Joker looks slightly and eerily like 'The Crow'...and the weird thing is both Heath Ledger and Brandon Lee died at young ages, sort of just after they had starred in the films...

I believe that what doesn't kill you only makes you STRANGER.

[–] VirginOnPromNight 14 years ago

the fans want to see him in makeup you simple minded fool. you cant figure that out? you give the fans what they want.