Plot
In Salt Lake City, Alexander "Alex" Frederick Corvis is framed for the murder of his girlfriend, Lauren Randall, and sentenced to death. Three years later, he is executed in the electric chair, suffering a painful death due to lightning overloading the energy of the chair.
The Crow resurrects Alex in the prison morgue and gives him supernatural abilities, allowing him to escape the prison and avenge Lauren's death. Alex follows the crow and finds evidence at the police station that Lauren was killed by a group of corrupt cops, including one with a scar on his arm matching the one he saw just before his execution. Later, at Lauren's grave, he encounters her sister, Erin, where the angel statue sheds a bloody tear. Erin believes that he is guilty, but Alex tells her that he will prove his innocence.
Later, Alex finds Thomas Leonard, the witness in the trial who was bribed to give a perjured testimony and forces him to confess that four members of the police force killed Lauren: Martin Toomey, James Erlich, Stan Roberts, and Phillip Dutton. Unbeknownst to him, there was also a fifth officer involved: Detective Madden.
Alex begins his road to vengeance, killing Dutton while saving two young girls he was sexually harassing, but not before reading his mind. Dutton tried to rape Lauren that day, only for her to use his gun to shoot Erlich. Alex then confronts Erlich, who assaulted his lawyer, Peter Walsh, at his office and hijacks his car. Alex instigates a police pursuit and crashes Erlich's car, blowing it up with Erlich inside, while also (inadvertently) destroying a police helicopter in the process. Alex drops the list of the cops he is after, and it is later found by Roberts and Toomey. With evidence found in Erlich's car, Alex and Erin find out that Nathan Randall, Erin and Lauren's father, is in business with the corrupt cops and is indirectly responsible for her death when Lauren uncovered the truth. Erin runs away in horror from her father when she is confronted with the truth.
Madden is ordered by Police Captain John Book and his secretary (also his lover) to deal with Leonard. Roberts and Toomey interrogate Leonard at his apartment about who killed Dutton and Erlich, and despite Leonard stating it was Alex, he and his wife are killed, orphaning their child. Alex confronts Walsh about his findings with the dirty cops and their connection to a company called DERT. Erin confesses to Alex that she felt guilty for Lauren's murder because she told the cops where they could find her, thinking that they would only arrest Alex. With his powers, Alex shows Erin that Lauren fought off her attackers and that Erin should forgive herself. Book heads to the prison with his secretary and Madden to investigate the prison break; they discover Alex's body missing from the morgue and the Crow insignia from a broken mirror, confirming that he has been resurrected. When Erin returns home, she finds her father dead, having been killed by Book in an earlier confrontation. Later, Alex finds out from Walsh that one of Nathan's businesses ran DERT, revealing it to be a front for a drug smuggling operation.
Book and Madden break into Walsh's office, where they fatally wound him and kidnap Erin; Walsh leaves a clue for Alex just before Madden finishes him off. Alex starts a fiasco at the Key Club and discovers that Lauren had witnessed Roberts killing a man named Sampson there, leading to her death. He is then confronted by Roberts, Toomey, and a team of cops as a shootout ensues. Alex impales Roberts with a pipe that he breaks off from the ceiling and kills the remaining cops. Madden shows up and tries to kill Alex, but his gunfire accidentally shoots a broken gas pipe. The explosion kills Toomey, and Alex walks out of the fire and sees a dismembered arm in the rubble with the zig-zag scar on it, believing the man with the scar to be among the crowd. The Crow leaves Alex, believing he has "fulfilled his duty". He then loses his ability to heal faster after an incident where he visualized Lauren, but it was a female bystander, whose boyfriend knocks Alex to the ground, giving him a bloody nose.
From Walsh's dying clue, Alex deduces that the "King" is Book. He heads to the police station to save Erin and kill Book, but without his powers, he is stabbed by Book and dies from his wounds. In agony, Book taunts Alex into believing that he killed Lauren, making the latter accept his demise. Book, Madden, and the secretary bring Alex's body to a room where Erin is tied with her mouth stitched shut and the body of Walsh hanging and missing an arm, revealing him to be the owner of the dismembered arm that Alex saw at the Key Club. Erin manages to pass Lauren's locket to the Crow, who drops it next to Alex, being a promise of love and truth. It revives Alex, restoring his powers and allowing him to set Erin free and kill both Madden and the secretary, while Book runs after Erin after she escapes and unstitches her mouth. Alex catches up with them and exposes Book's arm, showing the actual zig-zag scar Alex saw during the attack the night of Lauren's murder, therefore revealing Book as the mastermind who ultimately ordered the murders of Lauren and Thomas, as well as Alex's setup.
Alex and Erin take Book to the electric chair and electrocute him to the point of cremation. Alex's soul is finally released to reunite with Lauren and Erin keeps Lauren's necklace with her.
Production
Following the critical and commercial under performance of The Crow: City of Angels , series producers Edward R. Pressman and Jeff Most set their sights on producing a third film in the hopes of salvaging the property. [4] Initial development on a third Crow film was announced in August 1997, when it was announced Rob Zombie would be making his directorial debut with The Crow: 2037. [5] White Zombie covered the KC and the Sunshine Band hit "I'm Your Boogie Man" for the soundtrack of The Crow: City of Angels , and after seeing Rob Zombie's work on the video he produced for the song, Edward Pressman offered Zombie the opportunity to helm the third Crow film. [5] Had the film been made, Zombie planned to shift focus in tone from the revenge angle of the previous two entries, to a more horror-based approach. The film would've began in 2010, when a young boy and his mother are murdered on Halloween night by a Satanic priest. A year later, the boy is resurrected as the Crow. 27 years later, unaware of his past, he has become a bounty hunter on a collision course with his now all-powerful killer. [5] While producers responded favorably to Zombie's proposal for a third "The Crow" film, producers Pressman and Most ultimately decided it wasn't the best fit for a Crow film and was better served as a standalone work. [6] Zombie himself spoke of his frustration with experience spending 18 months working on the film often dealing with the indecisiveness of the producers who according to him would change their mind as to what they wanted on any given day which ultimately lead to Zombie leaving the project. [7]
On the suggestion of Most, it was decided that the third film would focus on a younger incarnation of The Crow, making the film more appealing to a teen audience. [6] In September 1998, it was announced Bharat Nalluri would serve as director of the third film in The Crow series with the script being provided by Chip Johannessen. [8] In October 1998, it was announced Kirsten Dunst had joined the cast. [9] In November 1998, it was announced Eric Mabius was in negotiations to star as the lead in the film. [10] Mabius had auditioned for the role of Eric Draven in The Crow that ultimately went to Brandon Lee as Mabius was deemed too young for the role, and also auditioned for Michael Massee's role as Funboy who fired the dummy cartridge that killed Lee. [4] Unlike the previous two films, The Crow: Salvation did not use miniaturized cityscapes to create its setting. [4]
Dimension had intended to release the film theatrically for a Halloween 1999 release. [11] The film ended up missing its intended release, which may have been the result of political fallout from the Columbine High School massacre which led to an anti-violence campaign from Al Gore and Joe Lieberman as well as Federal Trade Commission hearings on the marketing of violent films to teenagers which in turn led to Dimension taking extra caution in marketing violent films featuring or aimed at teens including pulling O from release. [12] Due to the film being envisioned for a teen audience, this likely curtailed the film's release prospects. [12]
Ultimately, the film was only given some preview screenings in Sacramento and San Antonio in the Summer of 2000 before being released direct-to-video in January the following year. [13]
Reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes it has an 18% approval rating based on 11 reviews, only two being positive. [2]
Lisa Nesselson of Variety responded positively to the film, opining that it was "a reasonably suspenseful, adequately made programmer" with a "calmly and wryly effective" protagonist and "efficient f/x artillery." [3] JoBlo's Berge Garabedian gave the film a score of 4 out of 10, and concluded, "The film itself was definitely a little more entertaining than the second installment with some pretty slick gory death scenes, a loud but cool soundtrack, and a lead who doesn't throw you off with a cheesy accent. In fact, I credit Mabius for pulling off a decent outing despite my initial skepticism (A teen Crow? Never!). Unfortunately, you don't really care about ANY of the characters, especially the bad guys or the family left behind, so all you're basically left with is a low-rent Crow retread with a decent lead, a nice look, but plenty of bad dialogue, zero originality or depth." [14] David Nusair of Reel Film Reviews had a similarly middling response to the film, giving it a score of 2 out 5, criticizing its casting and anemic violence, and writing, "While Salvation certainly isn't as bad as that first sequel, it still doesn't come near the sheer coolness of the first one." [15]
Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club lambasted the film as "a repugnant exercise in emptily stylish ultraviolence that plays like the longest, most expensive Rammstein video ever made" and closed his review of it with, "Dour and humorless even as its over-the-top violence and awful dialogue propel it to the realm of high camp, The Crow: Salvation marks a nadir for a series that was never especially good to begin with." [16] Jonathan Barkan of Bloody Disgusting counted Salvation and Wicked Prayer as being among the worst horror films that he had ever seen, calling them "deplorable" before going on to say, "Both of them felt like lazy, slapdash, thoughtless, cash cows and that feeling permeates in every scene, oozing out of the celluloid like some damn viscous disease." [17] Nick Perkins of Coming Soon was similarly derisive, ranking it as the worst in the series, and writing, "In theory, it's a good story. It should be, as it was written by Crow creator, James O'Barr. It's just the execution that left a lot to be desired. Mabius absolutely lacked the charisma that Brandon Lee possessed in spades. And though Kirsten Dunst also starred in this film, the supporting characters were generally as bland as the lead." [18]
