Movie Review: The Crow - Wicked Prayer

As my series on the films of Brandon Lee came to a close with the amazing The Crow, I felt inspired to continue. This continuation meant moving forward with reviews of the other Crow films. Now, I have reached the end of that brief journey (it's not like covering the seemingly endless string of Hellraiser sequels). The final film (to the time of this writing, anyway) is by far the worst. It is goofy, poorly written, badly acted, and exceptionally dull.



The Crow: Wicked Prayer is set on an Indian reservation where the populace is split on the impending closure of a toxic waste spewing mining operation. It's closing is to make way for a casino, but this fact doesn't really have to do with anything. Although, it does give us time to be introduced to the bad guys (complete with freeze frame stats). They happen to be members of a satanic cult and named for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Their leader is Luc aka Death (David Boreanaz) and he wants to be Satan. To that end, he and his gang of miscreants snatch up ex-con Jimmy Cuervo (Edward Furlong) and his girlfriend (Emmanuelle Chriqui) and kill them as part of a ritual to help Luc along his devilish path.

Following Jimmy's death, he gets the Crow treatment, the face paint, fashion sense, the works. He sets out to have his revenge on Luc and the gang. While he wanders around having random flashbacks to life with his girlfriend, not to mention a shared past with Luc. At the same time, the gang is wandering around doing bad things of their own.

I don't know. There just really isn't anything interesting about this movie. Well, that isn't exactly true, the cast has not only Boreanaz and Furlong but Tara Reid, Dennis Hopper, and a cameo by Macy Gray. So, if nothing else, you do have a bunch of familiar faces to watch.

It has not been that long since I have seen the movie and it is all slipping away already. This is not a movie that is going to stay with you for all that long. Even the other sequels had their charms and pluses. This one has nothing going for it. Sure, there is some laughably atrocious dialog and over the top performances to watch, but it is all in the service of nothing.

I was hoping there would be something there to like, anything. I like the director Lance Mungia. Well, I like his only other feature, the bizarre Six-String Samurai. Sadly, there was none of that here. It is the sort of movie that just leaves you shaking your head. The other films at least seemed to have genuine emotion underneath. Clearly, this was a low risk cash grab with no actual artistic merit intended. What a sad way to go for a franchise that started off so well and held so much personality.

Not Recommended.