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Review by James Lindorf
The idea of a reboot of Alex Proyas’ 1994 cult classic “The Crow” was first floated in 2008. Since then, multiple directors and actors, including Mark Wahlberg, Bradley Cooper, Luke Evans, Alexander Skarsgård, and Jason Mamoa, have all been rumored or even attached to play the leather-clad avenger. Finally, after nearly two decades in development purgatory, Lionsgate and director Rupert Sanders are ready to share their vision with the world during the 30th anniversary of the original film. “The Crow” is now playing around the country after its wide release on August 23rd.
After meeting in a prison-like rehab facility, soulmates Eric (Bill Skarsgård) and Shelly (FKA twigs) are brutally murdered when her past catches up with them. Enraged by the event, Eric is given the ability to traverse the worlds of the living and the dead in order to put the wrong things right. If his love remains pure after his campaign of revenge against the monstrous Vincent Roeg (Danny Huston) and his followers, he will be rewarded with a second chance with Shelly.
“The Crow” 2024 has the weird distinction of managing to be both better and worse than the original film. As Pennywise in the new “It” movies, the Marquis in “John Wick: Chapter 4,” or here as Eric Draven, you can always count on Bill Skarsgård to commit and perform well. Not to speak ill of the dead, but Skarsgård can give a much more adept emotional performance than Brandon Lee. However, the edge in physicality might be in Lee’s court, thanks to his background in martial arts and action films. Whatever elements of the new film people find fault in, it is unlikely to involve Skarsgård except a few times when his natural accent may slip through.
Another place the new version outpaces the original is in the story of Eric and Shelly. The original opened with the police searching their loft and rushing Shelly to the hospital after the attack. All we learn of her is from brief flashbacks, which consist primarily of declarations of love. Here, we are shown around 30 minutes of their meeting and apparently falling in love. While we are given multiple scenes of them together, their relationship is needlessly instantaneous and repetitive. The vast majority of their time consists of getting high on one substance or another, dancing around, or having sex. During their time together, they did a good job laying the groundwork for the makeup choices Eirc would make later. Unfortunately, the shallowness of their story and the speed at which it meets its tragic end makes it a bit silly that it would be viewed as this horrific event that would create the titular Crow. If it worked for them, then there would be hundreds of them born every day.
Now, we must look at what may make the original the only one you need to see. While Roeg is the kind of villain that would warrant a supernatural anti-hero being summoned to stop him, and Huston is just as capable an actor as Michael Wincott, Roeg will never be remembered like Top Dollar. Tin Tin, Fun Boy, and the other bad guys in the 1994 movie may be ridiculous, but their over-the-top villainy will always beat the blank nothingness of Roeg’s henchmen. I saw the movie hours ago and can’t name a single one without looking at the credits; in my mind, they are simply a blonde woman, the guy with a gold tooth, and a dirty cop. The original film also offers some humanity and levity with Ernie Hudson’s Sgt. Albrecht. He is kind to both Shelly and Eric in their darkest moments and provides at least 90% of the film’s jokes. The new film offers nothing but angst and brutality, which gets exhausting.
The 1994 movie created a world and mood that has stood as an icon of goth subculture for 30 years. The film may have only reached cult classic status. However, it managed to inspire other elements of pop culture, like the look of the popular wrestler Sting. This new film channels bad haircuts, bad tattoos, and meth, with its closest comparison being Jared Leto’s Joker, which is far from anything worth emulating.
Despite its flaws, “The Crow” 2024 has the potential to be the second-best film in the franchise. The pacing is erratic, trying to cram too many elements into its 111-minute runtime. Instead of focusing solely on the drug-fuelled grunge rock esthetic of this Eric, director Rupert Sanders wanted to blend that with the gothic elements of the original, the story of Orpheus, and some John Wick-style action in an opera house. While that action is very well staged, it is a departure from the rest of the film and hampered by distracting visual effects. When the movie is at its best, Eric is hunting his killers like a Terminator with a great element of body horror the original only hoped to achieve. If Sanders and the writing team had added more depth to the relationship between Eric and Shelly and made Roeg, who has demonic powers, more of a credible threat than a thug trying to clear an apartment for a payday, we could have been looking at the best of the franchise. Despite the film’s current shortcomings, I believe that more fans of the original should give the film a shot because the potential for improvement in future installments is something to look forward to. However, with a 3 out of 5 score and lackluster box office results, we are probably in for another long wait.
Rating: R (Gore|Drug Use|Language|Sexuality/Nudity|Strong Bloody Violence)
Original Language: English
Genre: Action, Fantasy, Crime
Director: Rupert Sanders
Producer: Edward R. Pressman, Samuel Hadida, Victor Hadida, John Jencks, Molly Hassell
Screenwriter: Zach Baylin, William Schneider
Distributor: Lionsgate
Production Co: Hassell Free Productions, Electric Shadow Company, Davis Films, Edward R. Pressman Film Corporation, Lionsgate
Release Date (Theaters): August 23rd, 2024, Wide
Runtime: 1h 51m
