The Crow Review – A Remake as Lifeless as Its Hero

The Crow probably could have worked in 2024, but this remake won’t get it there. I think it’s almost impossible to overcome the legend of the original work — though that in itself isn’t necessarily a death sentence. Unfortunately, this turgid, self-serious mess makes the idea of a gothic superhero seem completely impossible today. I really wanted to like The Crow (2024). It has a certain clumsy charm that brings to mind the cinematic efforts of an authentic emo teenager. Their current sensibilities aren’t as tolerable as they used to be.

The new Crow comes from director Rupert Sanders. The film’s production technically started in 2008. It ran through nearly every filmmaker and star in the industry before reaching its current lineup. Sanders is the fifth director to work on the film. His previous work includes Snow White & the Huntsman and the American Ghost in the Shell. Sanders’ distinct lack of style is one of the biggest blows to the film, especially when looking at Alex Proyas’ work on the 1994 original.

The Darkest Fairy Tale

I won’t be the first or last person to say this, but the central couple in this movie strongly resembles Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox. That had to be an intentional creative choice. I know the goth subculture that existed in the late 80s of the comic or the early 90s of the first movie is extinct now, but is this really its replacement? This remake of The Crow differentiates itself from its predecessor in a few key ways. The most important is its structure. Alex Proyas’ take on the material got its hero, Eric Draven, out of the grave and on his revenge quest in a matter of seconds. The romance that animates his corpse appears in flashbacks, but The Crow isn’t really about the love Eric and Shelly shared. The 2024 edition puts the focus squarely on the romance, much to the film’s detriment.

Bill Skarsgård portrays Eric, a troubled young man with a lot of tattoos. FKA Twigs plays Shelly, the character with the plot on her shoulders. Shelly starts the movie by receiving incriminating cell phone footage of a businessman using demonic superpowers. That shaky clip places Shelly in the villain’s crosshairs, forcing her to run to the cops. Eric and Shelly meet in a very old-fashioned rehab clinic. Shelly decides that the quiet kid at the lunch table is her soul mate. They escape together and fall madly in love for a vague amount of time. Their relationship, which takes up around 40 minutes, would feel perfectly grounded if both characters were meant to be fifteen. They have no chemistry, and their dialogue exchanges feel like reclaimed Snapchat message threads between star-crossed lovers attending different high schools. It’s hard to imagine someone risking death for this relationship.

We Didn’t Need the Lore

Speaking of things Alex Proyas’ The Crow handled with brevity, the 2024 remake dives deep into some complex details. The 1994 version had one line of voiceover and a couple of interactions with a bird. After Eric and Shelly die, Eric wakes up in a bizarre industrial purgatory. He chats with Sami Bouajila, an enigmatic mentor, who unpacks the details. There are so many weird little rules that don’t make any sense. This is, however, the source of the funniest moment in the film. Eric gains the power to return to life and heal from all injuries. If he beats the bad guy, he and Shelly can go back to the mortal realm. This doesn’t initially make Eric particularly good at fighting, so he spends his early confrontations getting butchered. He’s kind of a failure throughout the piece. It’s barely Eric’s story, and he’s not cut out for it.

Danny Huston’s antagonist is a front-runner for the year’s worst movie villain. He’ll probably have to shoot for the silver since I don’t see Madame Web backing down anytime soon, but it’s still a strong showing. Huston’s character, Vincent Roeg, speaks almost exclusively in lore-based exposition. He’s a bizarre businessman with some kind of classical music obsession. He made a deal with a demon that granted him eternal life, so long as he sends some innocent people to Hell in his stead. His execution method involves whispering some kind of magic words into his victims ears, causing them to immediately take their own lives. He’s utterly unimpressive, and his army of goons in suits are worse than fodder. Roeg is simultaneously too much and not enough.

It Can’t Rain All the Time

The Crow isn’t completely without redeeming qualities, but they are few and far between. Skarsgård isn’t terrible in the lead role. He has excellent physicality in the action scenes, and he even pulls off a few emotional moments. Despite its protests, The Crow is a superhero movie. It presents only three or four action set pieces, but only one merits discussion. Near the film’s end, The Crow breaks out into a mid-tier John Wick sequence set at an opera house. This is the best part of the project, making use of the film’s unique gimmicks and finally letting Skarsgård try on a tiny bit of Brandon Lee’s swagger. Here, a glimpse of a better film shines through for just a moment. They could have made a serviceable Crow film. All they had to do was rip off the modern answer to the franchise.

The Crow should have been a blindingly easy movie to make in 2024. We have four perfect examples from a guy who was in the 1994 original. Chad Stahelski was Brandon Lee’s body double in The Crow before he directed all four John Wick films. Those perfect action epics solve every problem The Crow remake has. They’re tight and efficient, while Zach Baylin and William Schneider’s script is messy and overstuffed. They’re stylish and thrilling, while Rupert Sanders’ direction feels soulless. John Wick even handles the loss of a loved one with a bit more tact. This was a rare opportunity to rip someone off with tremendous results. Instead, The Crow is mostly interested with unconvincing romance and pointless background details.

The Crow doesn’t deserve another chance. It’s a wonder that this mess of a film ever made it to the screen. After 16 years and dozens of massive stars “in talks to star,” the finished project feels like it shouldn’t exist. Maybe The Crow is truly cursed. The original comic was an explosion of authentic grief after a tragic loss. Five years later, the 1994 film was a cult classic that attained immortality after the lamentable loss of its star. Now, 30 years later, the 2024 remake hits theaters without a single notable catastrophe. We should all be grateful that it’s just a bad movie this time, but that doesn’t mean we should sit through it.