The Crow (Movie Review)
by Heath Lynch, Contributing Writer
Back in 1989, a supernatural comic called The Crow was released, breaking the glass ceiling as to what was possible with indie comic publication. It was such a massive underground success that it spawned a major Hollywood film in ‘94. At the time it was the biggest box office opening in the history of Miramax Films, and it ended up garnering a total of $93.7 million worldwide against a $23 million budget. The Crow was praised for its dark, gothic aesthetic, alternative soundtrack, visceral action, and stellar central performance from Brandon Lee. Combined with Lee’s death due to an on-set shooting accident, the film cemented itself in pop culture lore, and is still appreciated by moviegoers the world over decades later.
We should’ve listened to the universe when we tragically lost Lee, and left things well enough alone…
There were three sequels in the aftermath of the original film’s success, two of which ended up going direct-to-DVD. Not a good look. There was also a TV show that, while received well at the time, only ran for one season. The overall failures of these endeavors led the franchise to hibernation. No one wanted to touch this IP. At least, until now, nearly two decades since the last film. Because Lionsgate, the geniuses behind the recent smash hit and universally beloved Borderlands, is here to bring us The Crow, a retelling of the original graphic novel, a remake of the original film.
And it is ass.
There’s no sugarcoating it. This is an objectively bad film.
What made The Crow ‘94 so great was that it felt so distinct. Like a true artistic vision. There was passion and commitment in the project. The love story felt genuine. Even though it wasn’t entirely accurate to the comics, it captured the energy of the comics. The distinct visualization and tone. Even if you weren’t a big fan of the original film, you could step back and recognize why it was so entertaining to many. Unfortunately, The Crow ‘24 is nothing like this. It is a lifeless husk with no point of view or perspective. It’s not committed to the source material either, but it’s also not unique enough to forge its own path. There’s no believability in the central love story, its visualization is lackluster, the sad boy energy doesn’t mesh with the story, and more than anything, it’s just so damn boring.
It’s as if this new flick was written and made by people who had never read the original graphic novel or seen the original movie, but who instead had just vaguely heard the concept of the character and put their own spin on it. In a vacuum, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The story of The Crow is simple and straightforward. A man and the woman he loves are murdered. We learn that crows guide spirits to the afterlife. But the man is so hurt, his soul is in so much turmoil, that he’s too restless to cross over. So the crows bring him back to life, immortal, to exact vengeance upon his murderers until his soul is at peace enough to die again so he can cross over and be with his love. It’s not complex, and that allows flexibility in putting your own spin on a story. But you still need to make that story interesting, instead of just a complete slog.
The Crow ‘94 jumps us right into the action. Our star-crossed lovers are killed in the first seven minutes of the film, and that’s including opening credits. By the 15-minute mark, our hero has been resurrected, realized he’s immortal, donned the face paint, and begun his tour de revenge. Any detail to the love story is told to us through flashback throughout the rest of the runtime. In total, there are maybe 15 minutes devoted to this love story, but it feels genuine. The chemistry is there, and the dialogue helps to sell the premise.
The Crow ‘24 is nothing like this. It takes a whopping 45 minutes for our two main characters to die. We get to see their relationship in its entirety, from meet-cute to murder. And it’s awful. Just straight garbage. At no point is the chemistry between Eric (Bill Skarsgård) and Shelly (FKA twigs) remotely believable. I’d be more convinced of their infatuation with buttered toast than one another. Because all we ever do is see them sexing it up. The movie attempts to distract us with two attractive people walking around half naked, spending the ‘honeymoon’ session of their relationship in a luxury condo fooling around all day, calling it love. No, honey. That’s lust. And hey, we get it. You’re both very hot. But not once do either Skarsgård or Twigs ever speak a single line of dialogue that makes me feel like these characters know each other. Care about each other. The crappy dialogue they are forced to word vomit out of their mouths isn’t even well acted. Even Skarsgård, who I respect because of his work in flicks like It and Barbarian, often comes across wooden and robotic in his line readings. It’s borderline insufferable.
So when you’re spending 45 minutes accomplishing what the first film did in seven minutes, and you do a significantly crappier job at the same task, well, that’s not great to say the least.
By the time Eric and Shelly are killed, you’ll be thankful. Thankful you don’t have to suffer through any more of this horrid lover’s tryst and anti-chemistry. But more than anything, thankful that the plot of the film can finally proceed.
Although I have bad news for you, it still moves forward at a snail’s pace.
Instead of embracing the alt-gothic energy that the comic and original film wore with flourish and flare, this flick opts to crawl down a pseudo-nihilistic, sad boy path that flips a middle finger to the ‘90s alt-goth aesthetic in favor of a dreary ‘20s indie pop vibe. It’s the kind of modern look and sound that would even make emo kids of the ‘00s cringe. More apt, it’s the kind of aesthetic a Baby Boomer would say fits the look of Millennials and Gen Z if you asked them to describe the look of a younger generation, without actually having any understanding of the current scene whatsoever.
So while we could start having fun, frolicking through the fields of revenge, murder, and dismemberment (you know, the whole premise of the story), we instead must endure another 50 minutes of Eric trying to figure out what’s happening to him.
It’d be like watching another indie comic movie from ‘94, Jim Carrey’s The Mask, and instead of Jim putting on the mask and immediately embracing the chaos so that the movie can have fun and turn into what it’s supposed to be, it instead chooses to have Jim put on the mask and walk around the city for nearly an hour wondering what he should do with the mask now that he has it. Should he act out on his wildest dreams? Should he go to the Coco Bongo Club and dance with Cameron Diaz? Let us contemplate this for an hour, shall we?
That’s the second act of this movie.
Eric doesn’t go on a killing spree. In fact, any killing he does is largely by accident. He’s largely not even trying to find the people that killed him, just trying to figure out what he’s doing coming back to life. So much so that the movie decides to “kill” him and then “resurrect” him several more times. Do I want to get revenge? Did I really love Shelly? Is she worth all of this trouble? These could maybe, possibly (but not likely), be interesting questions if the script handled them the right way, but it all falls completely flat. Especially when the foundation of the film already doesn’t work, because you cannot possibly believe in the “love” story at the core of this story. So sometimes Eric kills people, largely by accident and without malice, defeating the purpose of the journey, sometimes he goes back to being dead and has to re-convince himself what he’s fighting for in the first place, and sometimes, well, he just sits there doing nothing.
The only time this movie has any gumption at all, or any possible chance at entertaining its audience, is when it finally gets to the third act. When Eric finally accepts that he’s an immortal, unstoppable being, and he paints on some greasy eyeliner running in teardrop fashion down his cheeks, the movie finally decides to have fun and do something. The question you will have to ask yourself is, do you give a damn? You’re at nearly an hour and 40 minutes into this film at this moment. You’ve sat through bad acting, a poor script with rough dialogue, a “love” story with zero chemistry that looks about as far from love as a “love” story could possibly appear. You’ve watched a hero become a hero, and not realize he’s a hero. You’ve watched him go through the same narrative beat three times, almost fallen asleep due to the lack of action, and scoffed at the neo-emo vibes and crappy soundtrack. Even if the movie does anything good at this point, does it even matter?
No, not really.
Yes, we finally get a cool action sequence in the third act, as the blood and violence that comics and series are known for are put on full display. It’s brutal and intense. If you want to see some extreme kills, they’re here. It’s just impossible to give a damn. I found myself even feeling resentment towards the action at this point, because although it’s exactly what I wanted from this movie in the first place, it was so out of place relative to the tone established from the entire film up until this point that it’s completely unwelcome. You’d almost rather the movie had not gone so extreme and intense. Because all this managed to do was piss me off even more, knowing what could’ve been. What was wasted on the cutting room floor? If the potential for this movie had matched the intensity of this bloody, katana-wielding assault on an opera house, could this have been a good movie? We’ll never know. We’ll only ever be annoyed about it.
After this temporary, gaslighting high, the movie immediately falls back down to Earth and the crappy reality it had set for itself. It ends in a completely unfulfilling way with a sleep-inducing confrontation with our big bad. A villain so dull and lacking detail that he makes every villain in the MCU look as complex and fascinating as Oskar Schindler. You’re left throwing your hands in the air and popcorn at the screen, as the movie does nothing to stand on its own, instead opting to set up future sequels that you know will never come because this film is such a barren wasteland of entertainment that no one would dare be stupid enough to sink any money into sequels, right? Right?!
In the end all I’m left doing is nitpicking this movie. Because, it isn’t one that’s so bad it’s good in a funny, haha way. It isn’t really something you can put on with your friends, grab some pizza and drinks, and enjoy due to its sheer stupidity. Hell, at least Madame Web has that kind of quality to it. That’s right, I said it. Madame Web is innocent in comparison to The Crow, the type of movie that’s so bad that it just festers in you. And all you can do is pick it apart. How is it that Eric gets to come back as the Crow and not Shelly; didn’t she love him too? Maybe more, because she never questions the relationship like we see Eric do? How exactly do these powers work? What’s the real objective of the bad guy? Did he want to steal the Crow’s powers? But he was already immortal himself being centuries old, so why does it matter? Who are all the baddies here? What’s their relationship to each other, what’s this organization doing? How is it that you can have a massive sword and gun fight in the lobby of an opera house where literally hundreds of rounds of ammunition are fired and not a single damn person in the opera house can hear people screaming and dying but then a man dripping in blood can just… walk on stage?! What’s happening here?!
For all the unanswered questions like these and so many more, I hate The Crow ‘24. For how utterly divergent it is from the source material, I hate this movie. For how clearly it is lacking in any distinct voice or purpose, I hate this movie. I hate it for it’s terrible visuals, awful soundtrack, eye-roll inducing script, laughable central love story, half-assed characterizations, atrocious chemistry, and wooden performances. Most of all, I hate how absolutely boring it is when it’s based on such an entertaining premise. Why it needed to be nearly two hours long is beyond me. Sure, there may be one cool action scenes, but it’s far too little, far too late to do anything towards redeeming this dumpster fire that easily goes down as one of the worst movies of the year.
Rating: Hated It
The Crow is currently playing in theaters
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