‘Crow’ Sequel Struggles to Take Flight

“They call this the city of angels, but all I see are victims. It’s the city of drugs. The city of death.” So says Sarah (Mia Kirshner), the young tattoo artist we meet in the opening moments of Tim Pope’s “The Crow: City of Angels.” She might add, without fear of contradiction from anything shown in the movie, “the city of overacting, the city of bad writing and the city of truly dreadful sequels.”

This follow-up to Alex Proyas’ exhilaratingly stylish 1994 hit, which was adapted from James O. Barr’s graphic comic book series, essentially attempts to duplicate the original story, though that one was set on the other coast.

Again, a murder victim returns to Earth to avenge his death and that of a loved one, being guided and given mysterious powers by a crow. Again, we are given fragments of flashbacks to show us how brutal those murders were. And again, his prey is a sleaze-clot of urban thugs, thrill killers he must root out from the nooks and crannies of a post-punk metropolis, then terrorize and destroy.

The only significant difference in the stories is that where Brandon Lee’s character in the first film is a rock musician out to avenge the deaths of himself and his fiance, Vincent Perez’s Ashe is a mechanic who’s killed with his young son.

The message for both: Love is stronger than death when you’re well connected with the crow god.

The story was no brain twister the first time around, but at least Proyas was interpreting the graphic series’ style in a way that was entirely fresh. We seemed to always be watching that movie through the eyes of the crow. The sequel follows the bird around, as well, but the point-of-view keeps shifting. We follow characters through the streets with a crow’s-eye view, but most of the internal narrative is coming from either the dead man, or Sarah, whose psychic connection to him is never explained.

Seeing Perez reprise Lee’s role underlines the loss to the action genre of Lee, who died after being accidentally shot during production of “The Crow.” Lee, the son of Bruce Lee, had tremendous physical presence in “The Crow,” and he gave his scenes an undeniable energy.

Perez barely draws attention to himself. Ashe is more of a moper than a doer, and even when he has his quarry trapped, he doesn’t seem inspired. If the subject of a revenge fantasy isn’t having fun, how can the audience be expected to?

* MPAA rating: R, for strong violence, drug content, language and sexuality. Times guidelines: A foul piece of work in every particular.

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‘The Crow: City of Angels’

Vincent Perez: Ashe

Mia Kirshner: Sarah

Richard Brooks: Judah

Iggy Pop: Curve

Thomas Jane: Spider Monkey

An Edward R. Pressman production, in association with Jeff Most, released by Miramax. Director Tim Pope. Producers Pressman, Most. Screenplay by David S. Goyer, based on the comic book series and comic strip by James O. Barr. Cinematographer Jean Yves Escoffier. Editors Michael N. Knue, Anthony Redman. Costumes Kirsten Everberg. Music Graeme Revell. Production design Alex McDowell. Art directors Gary Diamond, Charles Breen. Set designer Kristen Pratt. Running time: 1 hour, 27 minutes.

* In general release throughout Southern California.