I absolutely love this movie! I don't care what purists want to say, this is a truly great film that was handed the deathblow by a meddlesome Weinstein and a cut happy studio. But even on the surface the movie has gorgeous cinematography, great design, haunting score, awesome soundtrack, some wonderfully comic characters and a nice twist on the story. The resolution of the main villain is pretty bad, and there are some over-the-top one liners, but they just add to the charm. Tim Pope and company were robbed...

I know, this will be a very unpopular opinion, but I like this one better than the first. Overall, for me, a very good movie.

3 cents photocopy of The Crow. The exotic Mia stands out.

Quite the drop off. I wasn't totally and utterly bored with 'The Crow: City of Angels', the short 85 minute run time helps, but everything about it is extremely forgettable. This sequel to 1994's 'The Crow' fails to recapture anything that the original flick did so impressively, the whole vibe of this one just feels like a watered down rehash of what came prior. Mia Kirshner is the pick of the cast, she doesn't get much to work with but is still someone I was at least a tiny bit interested in onscreen. Vincent Perez isn't terrible, though there isn't really anything to praise about his performance. Elsewhere, Iggy Pop gives a wooden showing - though at least looked like he was having a blast doing so. Hopefully the other two sequels improved upon this.

A tragically compromised film, you can see what it wanted to be under the editing forced by Weinstein. Would that have been something amazing? Probably not, but it was something different. You can still see the style, the atmosphere, the smog over the city and the even more stylized outfits and villains lending it an apocalyptic, almost Mad Max vibe. The performances are more theatrical- Perez is more of a trickster than Lee was, and Brooks is just having fun with simple sadistic relish that would serve him well in Firefly. But the editing has cut the pacing to shit, and seems intent on stripping its identity away- flashbacks are forced in because it’s what the first one did! But everything this film imitates the first did better- the kills and action aren’t as striking. And the romance between Sarah and Ashe is nothing. Sarah ends up being just about as much a character as Eric’s dead girlfriend despite more screentime. The original version probably wasn’t going to be great, but it would’ve been more interesting, and could stand next to the original. Instead we’re left with only visions of what could’ve been. Maybe I’ll check out the fan cut sometime.