'The Crow' Review: It’s Ultimately For The Birds
The Crow is the latest in a long line of projects which are an adaptation of the original 1989 comic series by James O’Barr. The first attempt, starring Brandon Lee, was a critical and commercial triumph in 1994, spawning a number of sequels with diminishing returns. There were also adaptations for television, video games, music, and even a card game. Now, instead of another sequel or a remake of the 1994 film, we have a reboot of the original comic series. This film is once again produced by the late Edward R. Pressman and directed by Rupert Sanders (Ghost in the Shell, Snow White and the Huntsman). It is only the second film thus far to be a direct adaptation of the comics, and it’s finally coming to the screen after more than fifteen years of languishing in development hell (no pun intended).
The film follows Shelly Webster (FKA Twigs) and Eric Draven (Bill Skarsgard), two young people who meet each other in an isolated rehab centre. Both of them are deeply damaged; we only get hints of Eric’s past trauma, including a flashback of him trying to save a badly wounded horse when he was just a kid. Shelly’s backstory is the one which gets the greater attention; she is a musical prodigy who is estranged from her pushy stage mother (Josette Simon). Now, she and two of her friends are on the run from an extremely wealthy man named Vincent Roeg (Danny Huston). In an attempt to escape an attack on her life, Shelly gets herself arrested and committed for drug use, leading to her meet cute with Eric as she passes by his room in the facility.
From there, they quickly form a connection with each other as they put up with the centre’s strict rules. Things take a turn when the people hunting Shelly manage to track her to the centre. Eric helps Shelly to escape the centre (in a remarkably easy manner, it must be said). From there, they establish themselves amongst their group of friends, never quite explaining how they got their money or their home while they’re on the run.
Eventually, they’re discovered by Roeg’s henchmen and murdered side by side, each forced to watch the other die in an admittedly gruesome fashion. But while Shelly is sent to hell, Eric is instead introduced to Kronos (Sami Bouajila) an entity who offers Eric the chance to save Shelly by killing everyone who was responsible for her death. We never learn if Kronos offered this chance to anyone else in Eric’s position, nor why it’s only Shelly who might have a second chance as opposed to any of Roeg’s other countless victims.
The rest of the film follows Eric’s attempts to not only avenge Shelly but save her as well. Roeg, meanwhile, becomes highly interested in Eric, for some reason, and speaks about using him for his own ends, somehow. Fans of the 1994 film will be familiar with a scene where Eric disrupts a musical show by wiping out scores of the bad guy’s henchmen. However, the reboot has very little to do with the 1994 film. There’s no kid character to bond with Eric, nor is there a down-to-earth sympathetic cop who Eric can banter with. Shelly’s friends might have filled those roles, but one dies in the first ten minutes and the other shares one scene with Eric before he’s sent out of the movie. Another friend of Eric’s is even more painfully under-written, to the point that during an action scene, he is disposed of almost as an afterthought. Shelly’s mother is well acted, and she serves as an interesting connection between Roeg and her daughter, but too little is done with it to make a serious impact.
The film is certainly not without its positives. There is a scene at the rehab centre where a psychiatrist arranges the patients into a circle. They are encouraged to take steps forward in answer to questions that the psychiatrist throws at them, such as whether they’ve been let down by a parental figure, and whether they want to change their path. Eric, who had been floundering in the centre without any direction, now takes several steps forward as he faces Shelly across from him, who matches each of his steps so that they approach each other. It’s not a particularly subtle scene, but a highly effective one nonetheless, sold perfectly by Twigs and Skarsgard.
That’s another thing in The Crow’s favour. For all that the film indulges in ridiculous hyperbole, and for all that it has plot holes big enough for crows to fly through, the filmmakers did find actors who give brilliant performances. Skarsgard, who established himself in another remake of a famously dark story, transforms himself once again. It might not be the best material that he’s ever been given, but his devotion to the film is undeniable. Twigs does a good job with what little she’s given, forced into that tired trope of a fridged love interest. Meanwhile, Huston shows just how truly wasted he is by playing one of the worst onscreen villains since Madame Web. Vaguely rich, vaguely powerful, Roeg serves only to be the main boss in Eric’s kill-list. As Roeg helpfully exposits to one of his victims (and as Kronos later exposits to the protagonist, thus rendering the aforementioned exposition pointless) he sends innocent souls to hell in place of his own so that he can live an eternal life. Admittedly, one interesting aspect to his character is the notion that when he kills someone, he rips out their souls and reduces them to husks whose last action is to kill themselves. The problem comes when the big twist is revealed regarding his relationship to Shelly; it differs markedly from his modus operandi, for seemingly no reason other than because Shelly is one of the protagonists.
In all honesty, you could argue that several of this film’s biggest flaws (under-explained villain, inconsistent story logic, one-dimensional side characters, occasionally clunky dialogue) are actually shared with the 1994 film. Both are also carried by a genuinely good lead actor who is able to juggle comedy and drama in a gothic action film. The difference is that the 1994 film was absolutely its own production; it had a signature look and feel which still holds up today. The 2024 film attempts to be its own story as well, and it tries to lean into the ridiculousness and Gothic atmosphere which the 1994 film perfected. The new film’s action scenes add extra gore, and replace the rock concerts with an opera. But it lacks several key strengths that the 1994 film had going for it.
Truthfully, it’s a shame to see good efforts go to waste. The actors certainly believed in what they were doing, but they put their faith in the same guy who thought Motoko Kusanagi should be played by Scarlet Johanssen. They also thought that their reboot could hit the same way that the first one did. Unfortunately, The Crow can’t help but flounder in a muck of its own making. It’s trying to update a story that’s more than 30 years old, while also trying to evoke the same things which made the 1994 film a beloved classic. It is a dangerous challenge for most filmmakers to take on, and failure is exceptionally punished.