Daily Staff Writer

Seen it.

That’s a typical cry for jaded filmgoers while viewing sequels, especially sequels that fall far short of the original. And it should ring loud at screenings of The Crow: City of Angels.

A rehash of the first film, it’s another story of beyond-the-grave revenge. Ashe (Vincent Perez) and his young son are killed by a drug lord’s enforcers after they witness them whacking some guy in an alley.

Ashe rises from the dead and proceeds to kill the bad guys one by one in accordance with their various vile vices.

Sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it? The Crow: City of Angels offers little that the first film did not. In fact, it offers much less.

First, the characters – from villains to allies – are thin and mirror those from The Crow with little fresh creativity.

Director Tim Pope loads the film with style but absolutely no vision. The Crow had vision – it almost qualified as an epic. A dystopian Los Angeles provides a setting for a film of grand scale, but the film has an almost intimate feel. There’s none of the rooftop-leaping expansiveness of The Crow’s burned-out Detroit; all the action seems to be confined to a few square blocks.

In particular, the scene where the revived Ashe buries his son should have been far longer, as Ashe makes an emotional trek from the coast to the hills surrounding L.A. to put the boy to rest.

Instead, he just pulls the boy out of the bay, and two jump cuts later voila – we’ve hit the hills. And the entire film was shot under low-power yellow lighting, for that ultra-seedy look. The lack of variance in lighting severely diminishes the film’s emotional impact.

Shockingly, it’s also lacking in action. The Crow was a nonstop shootout, but City of Angels is so concerned with style that almost nothing happens in the film.

The final showdown with drug lord Judah has none of the apocalyptic impact or scale of the firefight in The Crow.

Worst of all, Perez – while certainly good – can’t begin to match the late Brandon Lee’s charisma as the resurrected avenger.

In a scene guaranteed to highlight the void Perez cannot possibly fill, Ashe battles a martial artist one-on-one.

A quickly-edited flurry of fists and weapons takes the place of what could have been a brilliantly choreographed slugfest.

Oh, what could have been. The film’s one highlight is punk legend Iggy Pop. He should play a bad guy in every movie where a truly loathsome villain is needed.

The Crow: City of Angels is rated R for everything a film can be rated R for, and it comes in boxcar lots. Leave the kids at home.