The Crow 4K review
May 07, 2024- Permalink
Alex Proyas’ 1994 film The Crow is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and Paramount has released it on 4K. Based on James O’Barr’s 1989 comic book series, it tells the tale of a rock musician who rises from the dead to avenge the murders of himself and his fiancée. The film achieved a cult status as the film’s star, Bruce Lee’s son Brandon Lee, died from a prop gun accident a week or so before filming was set to conclude. The cast also features Ernie Hudson and Michael Wincott.
The 2160p HEVC / H.265 encoded native 4K digital transfer with Dolby Vision and HDR10 is presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Despite being a dark film, the details and sharpness is there on facial features, textiles and environments. The transfer retains a natural film grain. The colour palette is muted, but there are occasional pops of colour. The HDR grading allows the transfer to give us amazingly deep black levels with no loss of detail an darker and shadowy scenes. It’s a very good looking presentation.
On the audio side of things, you have the choice of an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack as well as German, Spanish, and French Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks and an Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 track. Subtitles are available for English, English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Korean, Norwegian, and Swedish. It’s a powerful soundtrack with plenty of punch from the subwoofers. The surrounds don’t always contain a lot of the action, but the ambient sounds place you nicely into the environment. Graeme Revell’s score and music from Stone Temple Pilots, Nine Inch Nails and other contemporary artists sounds great. Dialogue is clear and centred, but occasionally is a bit down in the mix.
The Crow 4K also comes with a digital code, though once again a digital code is missing from the Canadian release. The extras add a couple of new items, with the other extras bringing in legacy material from previous releases. There are two commentaries: one from director Alex Proyas and the other from producer Jeff Most and screenwriter John Shirley. There’s a new three-part doc called “Shadows & Pain: Designing The Crow” where production designer Alex McDowell looks at how the design, music, cinematography and other elements all came together, a new interview with producer Edward R. Pressman that looks at Sideshow Collectible’s figurines, a profile of the comic series creator James O’Barr, a behind-the-scenes featurette, extended and deleted scenes and a trailer.
The Crow 4K combines an excellent video transfer as well as a powerful soundtrack. Add in new and legacy extras and this is a recommended home video presentation. Avid collectors may also be interested in the SteelBook release.