The Crow review

THE CROW: 

THIS “CROW” UPDATE IS IRONICALLY DEADER THAN ERIC DRAVEN HIMSELF! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: * ½ out of 4

LIONSGATE

Bill Skarsgård in The Crow

 

            Much like the Eric Draven character, the Crow franchise has been resurrected in this new reboot of The Crow based on James O’Barr’s comic book series of the same name. I should make this clear, I have never read the comic the film is based on though I have seen the 1994 movie adaptation starring the late Brandon Lee many times which is freaking awesome. 

            One of the all-time greatest comic book movies? No, but the 1994 Crow has a neat visual style reminiscent of Tim Burton’s Batman, Brandon Lee is phenomenal in the titular role, and it’s just a fun, kickass superhero movie that spilled blood on the ground before Blade and Deadpool hit the scene and couldn’t be replicated as evidenced in the Crow sequels that came after. 

            After a disappointing theatrical sequel with 1996’s The Crow: City of Angels (Also, one of the worst comic book movies I’ve ever seen!) and two equally subpar direct-to-DVD sequels, The Crow: Salvation and The Crow: Wicked Prayer from 2000 and 2005, director Rupert Sanders (Snow White and the Huntsman, Ghost in the Shell (2017)) has accepted the challenge of bringing this dead franchise back to life with his take on The Crow. The news definitely caught the internet by storm with many people being outraged over its announcement long before it even gained traction (The project was originally announced back in 2017 under Sony Pictures) and deeming it as an insult against Lee’s legacy. 

            I was somewhat open to it when Bill Skarsgård (It: Chapters 1 and 2, John Wick: Chapter 4, Boy Kills World) was announced to portray Eric Draven/The Crow in the movie. He probably wouldn’t have lived up to Brandon Lee from the original film, but I was optimistic that he could bring his own unique spin to it…then the trailer came out and I sank and the film itself didn’t help. 

            The 2024 version of The Crow is the kind of bad movie that makes you feel absolutely goddamn nothing while you’re watching it and very much fails to live up to the 1994 film in just about every way while also failing as a standalone movie. I honestly wish this was a giant dumpster fire like Madame Web or the 2015 Fantastic Four because at least I would have felt something during my viewing. 

            The film follows Eric (Skarsgård), a man who endured a troubled childhood and resides at an institution for troubled youth. There he meets and befriends a young woman named Shelly (FKA Twigs-Honey Boy) and the two of them fall in love after escaping from the institution. 

            But when Eric and Shelly are murdered by men sent by a demonic crime lord known as Roeg (Danny Huston-21 Grams, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Wonder Woman), Eric is mysteriously resurrected with the inability to die and takes his vengeance against the men who murdered his lover as the vigilante, The Crow. 

            The film also stars Josette Simon (Blake’s 7, Wonder Woman, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu) as Sophia, Laura Birn (A Walk Among the Tombstones) as Marian, Sami Bouajila (The Siege, Days of Glory, Outside the Law) as Kronos, and Jordan Bolger (Peaky Blinders, The Book of Boba Fett, The Woman King) as Chance. 

            Overall, this new update on The Crow is a dreary, shallow, and surprisingly dull re-imagining of such an awesome character that fails both as a reboot and as a standalone superhero movie. I’m assuming the film is trying to be like Batman Begins or Iron Man where it explores the events leading up to him becoming The Crow and do like a hero’s journey sort of thing. 

            I guess I would have been fine with that since the 1994 Crow already starts with him established, but the problem with that is Batman Begins and Iron Man had far better character development especially with its protagonists thus making you more invested in their journey. Here, I don’t give a shit about Eric, Shelly, or Stock Villain Played by Typecast Villain Actor because the film is horribly paced with it constantly jumping back and forth between characters and doesn’t give them enough time to be fleshed out or in some cases have almost zero chemistry which is sadly the case between Eric and Shelly in the movie. 

            The original Crow movie is a perfect example of less is more because sure, Eric’s romance with Shelly is mostly shown in flashbacks but you felt a connection with them through those small scenes thus making their tragic demise all the more effective because of how well-executed (No pun intended) those moments are. Eric and Shelly here just feel like stock lover characters that could be reused for completely different movies and their romance (Which should be the emotional core of the film) drags for the first 20 minutes and is nowhere near as engaging as the film probably hoped despite being portrayed by decent actors. 

            Despite the lackluster material, Bill Skarsgård is clearly trying to make his performance work and to his credit he is perfectly fine even if he looks like Jared Leto’s Joker from Suicide Squad and the script is garbage. I wasn’t really going in trying to compare him unfairly to Brandon Lee from the original and had the film been better I think he could have been a decent Crow. 

            The movie doesn’t even have a unique style to it with a lot of scenes feeling like they’re ripped out of The Dark Knight trilogy (specifically with the aerial shots of the city) which is something I’d rather be watching instead of this. Other times it looks like the 2003 Daredevil, the 1997 Spawn movie, or Blade with nothing new or visually interesting onscreen and where The Crow: City of Angels is such an ugly, murky film to watch this one is incredibly bland and unremarkable in terms of its look. 

            The action is nice and gory though with a lot of creative kills after Eric finally becomes The Crow like 40-something minutes into the film (Yeah, it’s one of those superhero origin stories except done terribly), but it’s sort of like the 2019 Hellboy reboot where these sequences probably would have been really cool in a much better movie. But as they stand, they’re occasionally fun moments sprinkled into a dreary slog of a superhero movie. 

            The Crow (2024) is one of the most pointless and soulless superhero reboots I’ve seen in a long time because it pales in comparison to the original and it doesn’t do anything new or unique with its story and characters. Just stick with the 1994 Crow and if you really want R-rated comic book entertainment on the big screen, go see Deadpool & Wolverine again because that movie has a much better understanding of character development and engaging storytelling; it’s also far more entertaining so just pretend this new Crow doesn’t exist (or continue to).