Crow: Wicked Prayer, The

You know when you're really looking forward to a movie and it turns out to be a complete pile of garbage, you feel angered and somewhat betrayed by the film makers. That's how The Crow: Wicked Prayer made me feel. So I'm just going to jump right into this one. It sucked. It sucked bad. That's something I didn't want to have to say about this movie because I'm a big fan of the Crow movies and comics, and this sequel had the potential to be one of the best. But it disappoints on every level.

I liked The Crow: Salvation, it was a decent sequel that at least tried to do something different in the franchise with the whole murder mystery angle. Of course nothing will ever compare to the original, it's a masterpiece in my opinion, but at least Salvation was a big step above the dreadful City of Angels. Wicked Prayer now brings the series to a new low, and once more it's back to the same old formula. David Boreanaz and his gang of thugs murder Edward Furlong and Emmanuelle Chriqui, Furlong then returns from the dead to take them all out. The only minor changes are the setting has been moved to a dusty Mexican mining town and there's a retarded sub-plot involving Boreanaz trying to become the Anti-Christ. The movie doesn't even have any action or interesting visuals to help carry the story along. Wait a minute, what story. The "screenplay" by Jeff Most, Sean Hood and director Lance Mungia is one of the worst in recent memory. There's dialogue so horrible in this movie you have to wonder if they wrote it while sniffing glue. I'm not exaggerating here, it really is that bad.

The direction isn't much better. Lance Mungia seems to have an obsession with showing stuff in slow motion and it get's pretty damn unbearable after the 100th time. In fact, he seems to have an obsession with recycling just about every cheesy visual gag in the book. Scenes are sped up, slowed down, blurred, tinted different colours, replayed over and over again. The list goes on and on. But let's not forget the over use of flashy, music video editing. Barf. Strange that the movie is edited like a music video, yet there's no rock music in the entire movie. Some good rock music could have really helped pump up the few minor action sequences. Mungia shot the movie in only 28 days, so in that respect I suppose he did an ok job, but the man has no flare for pace, action or character. Coupled with a shitty script and it's no wonder this movie was doomed right from the beginning.

It's no surprise that a bad script brings out bad performances. Edward Furlong, who looks pretty good as the Crow, tries to give a good performance, but for the most part it's one god awful one liner after another and Furlong doesn't end up with much else to do but look pissed off the entire movie. No fight scenes, no cool executions by the Crow....just a lot of looking pissed off and spitting out bad dialogue. This is what happens when a good actor is given a shitty script to work from. One of the other main reasons I was looking forward to this movie was to see David Boreanaz in another role besides Angel. I'm a die hard Buffy and Angel fan, so it's hard for me to see him as another character. He starts off doing a pretty good job in this movie, the character is very different from Angel, but in the end he just ends up doing an even more over-the-top version of Angelus (Angel's evil alter ego). In fact, Boreanaz hamming it up for the camera is part of the reason this movie goes right down the toilet.

I've saved the worst for last. Tara Reid. Even thinking about the fact that people keep putting this girl in movies pisses me off. She can't act her way out of a paper bag, and her performance in Wicked Prayer makes Denise Richards look like a Oscar winning actress. Sorry for the spoiler, but she doesn't even die in the movie. She kills the Crow's girlfriend and she doesn't even die for it. I guess revenge ain't what it used to be. Reid is a horrible actress and this is the worst performance I've seen since the days of Ed Wood. There's not even much point in mentioning Dennis Hopper since he's only in the movie for ten minutes and makes a complete fool out of himself, spouting off rap lingo that died out in the mid 90's. Singer Macy Gray get's the "and" title in the credits, but she's in the movie for only a brief moment and still acts like she's on mushrooms.

I really don't know what else there is to say about a movie that's this disappointing and hard to watch. I was really looking forward to another decent Crow sequel, but Wicked Prayer just repeatedly lets the viewer down in every way. The direction, story, dialogue, performances, editing, music.....all are bottom of the barrel. There's really nothing to recommend about The Crow: Wicked Prayer, it's just one huge disappointment.