l, let's just say the meter hit triple digits in record time.

And then there's Edward Furlong, that stringy kid who played John Connor in Terminator 2. Now, I bet you think I'm going to tear into Ed here, but actually ... I like the guy. He's done some damn fine work, especially in movies like Pecker and American History X, but there's just no way around the simple truth: Asking Edward Furlong to play a scary, tragic, undead vigilante is like asking Richard Simmons to play George Clooney. Since most of the movie deals with Furlong as the Crow-type ass-kicker, you can of course expect to giggle non-stop as Wicked Prayer churns on. Frankly, Furlong in full-on Crow m

Get a load of the two audio commentaries, one with director Lance Mungia and producer Jeff Most, and the other with Mungia, cinematographer Kurt Brabbee, editor Dean Holland, and sound designer Steven Avila. And I'm asking you as a favor, because, let's be honest, life's way too short to spend listening to TWO audio commentaries for The Crow: Wicked Prayer. Even the meaningless life of a movie geek DVD critic. Mr. Most gets things started by informing us that not only was he the producer, but also the co-screenwriter, the music supervisor, and the second unit director. Mungia chuckles and says he was also the caterer and a bottle-washer. Already my temples are beginning to throb. And then not 58 seconds into the commentary, as the opening credit sequence plays, Mr. Most says "We're seeing these names pop up here..."

I fully admit that this is when I chose to employ the Chapter Skip button on my remote.

Chapter 2 - "The kids were not actually lit on fire."

Chapter 4 - "The family atmosphere on set and, obviously, what you see on film was really, um, a result of this story being about people who all knew each other."

Chapter 5 - "Lady Macbeth, there." (While referring to Tara Reid's character.)

Chapter 7 - "The only huge deal is, at the end of the day, you have something to watch."

Chapter 9 - "One of the things that really impressed me about him was, in his background, he had done community theater in Bakersfield."

Chapter 13 - After the director tries about six times to get a word in edge-wise, Mr. Most yields the floor and Mungia delivers this pearl: "Very easily, it could have just happened that you were in it for a paycheck, I was in it for a paycheck, we were just gonna crank something else out and cash in on the franchise..." and then trails off while explaining how that isn't what happened. I was laughing too hard to hear it all that clearly.

As far as the second commentary goes, well, feel free to give it a spin and submit your own mini-review of the track. I'll include it right here in this blank space:

(blank space)

Moving on to the other supplemental material:

Wings and a Prayer: The Making of The Crow: Wicked Prayer begins, and I find myself desperately hoping to see that the filmmakers are aware of the film's overwhelming silliness. And ... nope. All the interview segments were obviously done on the production set, which explains why everyone seems to be talking about the movie in their "serious voice." This combination of film clips, on-set footage, and cast/crew interviews runs for an outlandishly self-important 30 minutes, and ends with Mr. Boreanaz reminding us that yes, The Crow "lives inside all of us." (Sounds painful.)

El Pinto is a pointless little 2.5-minute clip of producer Jeff Most and several crew members as they talk about who came up with the "idea" to have "cars" in the movie. Weird.

Black Moth Bar Storyboards is exactly what it sounds like: A storyboard-to-movie comparison that you'll never watch, even though it only runs 4 minutes.

Margaritas and Conversation (with producer Jeff Most and director Lance Mungia) is a black-and-white stroke-fest in which the filmmakers drink alcohol, smoke cigars, and wax unceasingly pretentious about the movie they made. Guys, "fantastical" is not a word. The guys just ramble on for 180 back-patting seconds, clearly trying to convince the viewer (and each other) that they've made some sort of deep, thoughtful film worthy of lofty retrospection. Guys, c'mon, you shot an in-name-only direct-to-video cheapie sequel in 23 days, which Miramax then (wisely) kept on a shelf for three years. Give us a break.

Also included are two deleted scenes, and one must wonder what how bad a scene must be to get deleted from a flick this dire, but I digress: entitled "The Gathering Center" and "Rick E. Ravens," the two sequences are presented with non-optional director's commentary, in which Mr. Mungia explains why they were snipped, without explaining why the rest of the movie made the final cut.

Jamie's Attic is a 3-minute visit into the studio of composer Jamie Christopherson. Nice to see that professional harmonica players can still find a few paying gigs. The composer spends more time showing his a hidden bedroll than he does discussing the film's music, but Jamie's wife stops by to say how much she digs hubby's tunes.