‘The Crow’ (2024) Review – Third Act Blood-Letting Can’t Save This Lifeless & Dull Reboot

This review needs to be started with a statement of full disclosure because it can’t be denied that this could’ve affected how I viewed this take on The Crow, despite going in with an open mind. I’m a HUGE fan of the 1994 original film. It was a big part of my childhood growing up and I’ve found more and more to love about it as I’ve gotten older. In so many ways it was ahead of its time in terms of its visual palette, execution, and style but even above all of that, it had an emotionally resonant story.

A lot of this no doubt has much to do with the real-life tragedy that permeates every frame of the film, something I’ve never really been able to keep far from my mind while watching it. The tragic events that led to star Brandon Lee’s death on set at the age of 28 are a part of the film’s DNA, for better or worse. Given the film’s themes of life and death, that film being Lee’s final screen presence on film takes the movie to heights that may not have been possible otherwise. Some have said that the tragedy turned a good film into a great film, simply by design and unfortunate happenstance.

There have been sequels to The Crow and a television series and now we have the emergence of a long-in-development reboot finally hitting the big screen. Given the fact that The Crow is based on source material created by James O’Barr in 1989, I have fallen in the league that a reboot isn’t off-limits because the 1994 film isn’t the beginning of the story. The source material is open season to be adapted BUT, should that be the case, it needed to be done with time and care because the 1994 original,  in many ways, has even surpassed the source material for some fans. It has become a mythic and sacred piece of work so anyone that would take on this task, would need to put in a lot of work to make their take stand out.

Unfortunately, this new film directed by Rupert Sanders from a screenplay by Zach Baylin and William Schneider, fails on nearly every level. It’s hard to imagine what the goal was here because, as its own entity, it doesn’t offer up anything to stand out positively and as a direct comparison to the first movie, it doesn’t come close to measuring up. It’s all style and zero substance, something that the original Crow had in spades. Despite the best efforts of Bill Skarsgård and FKA Twigs (they’re completely innocent here), the film never finds much of a reason to exist and by the time the movie reaches a third act that is high on visceral action, violence, and gore, it’s too late to even save it as some kind of guilty pleasure.

The new story offers up the basic beats of what fans already know, although there are attempts to give a bit more character details to Skarsgård’s Eric Draven. As we meet him, Eric is in rehab and it’s clear that he has a very dark past, something the audience discovers mostly through Eric’s goth aesthetic. Eric also seems deeply enthralled with mortality, something that is again briefly hinted at during a flashback scene to his childhood when he attempts to save a fatally wounded white stallion. Credit to Skarsgård, much of what drives Eric is conveyed through a performance that is far better than the material as he has to do a lot of heavy lifting for what is missing from Baylin and Schneider’s script.

Eric’s world shifts when he meets Shelly (FKA Twigs) after she checks into the rehab and happens to be battling her own demons. In one of the few things the movie gets right, the connection between the pair is palpable, thanks in large part to the natural chemistry between Skarsgård and Twigs. There is an energy between the duo and their romance defies feelings that are easy to describe as it feels much deeper. Eventually, the two lovers have a chance to escape the rehab facility and start a new life where their demons feel far behind them.

Or so it seems. While things are fine for a short while, Shelly is still running from her past and her demons aren’t just in her head. She’s trying to escape a demonic crime lord named Vincent Roeg (Danny Huston) and he and his minions desperately want to find and get rid of her because she has evidence that could expose them. It’s no secret that they do find the pair, Shelly is killed and Eric is an innocent bystander in all of the carnage except Eric doesn’t die. He’s trapped in some kind of purgatory where he can actually have a chance to save Shelly from damnation. He can bring her back to life if he kills Roeg and his gang but his love for Shelly must remain pure throughout and if not, he will have to take her place.

Starting with the good, and there isn’t a lot, is that the motivations are a bit more romantic in this outing, and that drives Eric more than it did in the 1994 original film. Lee’s Eric Draven was driven by vengeance as he ran down the foes who killed his fiance and nearly killed him with his acts coming off as more deserved retribution. There was no real hope of bringing his Shelly Webster back and his goal was more about avenging her life and the life they could’ve had. The new version’s love story takes more of a center stage and it makes for a potentially interesting direction to blur the lines of romance and the supernatural but the screenplay isn’t strong enough to balance the two worlds. There are several occasions when the film falls back on its visual palette, which is satisfactory from cinematographer Steve Annis, but the story needed more than that. 1994’s The Crow was a visually stunning piece of work but it also had a beating heart. This one doesn’t.

The big misstep is with the film’s villain. Despite Danny Huston being reliably good as always, it feels as if they wanted to give Skarsgård’s Eric Draven a more supernatural-driven foe rather than the devilishly good, but human, Top Dollar, played by Michael Wincott, in the first film. Vincent sold his soul to the devil so that he could have he could have eternal life and this is maintained by Vincent sacrificing innocent souls for Satan himself. The problem with all of this is that even with the added layer of demonic motivation, Huston’s villain, as written, is pretty weak, and never feels like a viable threat. They also attempt to give him someone to care about as well, in this case, a concert pianist that he takes interest in because it seems like the plot needs him too. Huston does the best he can with the upper-crust Vincent but Skarsgård does so much heavy lifting him that there isn’t much room for Huston to do the same.

When speaking on Skarsgård’s performance as a whole, he does what he can with the part and you can tell he’s dedicated but he’s stifled by the film trying desperately to be cool and make him look cool. It’s not so much that his Crow makeup and clothing attire is bad, it’s just that it’s too much. He’s rendered with tattoos that make him look like he’s channeling Jared Leto’s Joker and a lot of it screams trying too hard. None of this is Skarsgård’s fault because he has proven to be a fine actor, no matter the material. If anything, it’s frustrating that the film around him isn’t better.

Once Eric fully takes on the Crow persona, the film does offer up a pleasantly violent third act that is suitably bloody and relentless. Taking place at an opera house, it feels as if most of Sanders’ visual prowess and directorial skills were saved for this sequence. For anyone bored up to this point, it will likely wake them up but it comes too little, too late.

Funnily enough, the movie leaves things open for a sequel but given the critical reception so far and projected subpar box office, it’s highly unlikely a follow-up will come to fruition. As it stands, this version of The Crow proves that not all IP needs to be resurrected, especially when it’s clear that resting in the peace of the original is where this should’ve stayed if the motivations to bring it back were so poor.

The Crow is now playing in theaters nationwide courtesy of Lionsgate.