‘The Crow’ Fails to Take Flight

Blink Twice

★ ★

‘The Crow’ is a remake of the 1994 supernatural thriller that fizzles out fast and stays flat, even in its most violent action scenes. There are some big shoes to fill when remaking the cult classic, and this attempt is just too small to fill them. From cinematic style to the connection with the main characters, the original outplays this film in every single way.

The premise of The Crow is the same. A man and his girlfriend are murdered, and the man’s spirit is so unsettled, a crow is able to bring him back to life to avenge their death. The crow also provides supernatural powers – near invincibility. As in the original, the main protagonist is Eric Draven, and the love of his life is Shelly.

Bill Skarsgård and FKA twigs
© 2024 Lionsgate

We get a glimpse into his childhood, portrayed by Solo Uniacke, when he’s somewhere between 10 and 12 years old. He returns home from school to find his horse lying on the ground ensnared in barbed wire. He attempts to free the horse, severely cutting his hands in the process. All this happens while his mother is passed out drunk on the couch inside their run-down house.

We move to the present where Shelly (FKA twigs) gets a call from Zadie (Isabella Wei), a friend in distress who warns her that a video involving them both has been sent to some very bad people. The video is so bad they need to skip town.

In both of their attempts to flee, Zadie is caught by the bad guys, and Shelly gets arrested with drugs on her person. Between the two, Shelly is the more fortunate. Rather than incarceration, she’s sent to a drug rehab facility where she meets Eric (Bill Skarsgård).

When the bad guys track Shelly down in the rehab facility, she and Eric escape together and have a whirlwind romance while on the lam. The film hangs out here for a while, spending much more time developing the love between Eric and Shelly than the original film.

Eric Draven and Shelly by a campfire
© 2024 Lionsgate

The bad guys eventually catch them and kill them both. In the afterlife, Eric meets a spirit named Kronos (Sami Bouajila), who tells him his soul can’t rest and move on until he avenges their murder. He must become the film’s title character, a supernatural superhero of sorts, The Crow.

The film spends a great deal of time developing Eric into The Crow, back and forth into the afterlife with more dialogue and exposition than is necessary. This is where the movie truly loses focus.

Bill Skarsgård as Eric Draven/The Crow
© 2024 Lionsgate

The 1994 film set up the scenario within its first 10 minutes and quickly got the audience emotionally invested. In that time, we understood the depth of Eric and Shelly’s love for one another and why Eric must come back and avenge their deaths. This new version spends an exceedingly long time setting up the story and fails to create a strong emotional investment.

Surprisingly, I would have much more enjoyed the film had they focused more on Eric and Shelly as they escape the antagonists while they fall in love and try to overcome their addictions. But that’s not why we bought a ticket to The Crow. We want to watch Eric Draven extract his revenge on the people who ended his and Shelly’s lives. We need a strong connection to the characters to really pull us in, and this offering does little to do that.

Bill Skarsgård as The Crow
© 2024 Lionsgate

There’s some good cinematography here. and the action scenes are well choreographed. It’s too bad the script didn’t deliver enough emotional material to make that matter.

It begs the question: why remake this film? Brandon Lee’s original portrayal of Eric Draven and The Crow is an iconic cult classic cinema masterpiece. This version of The Crow does not come close.

Action, Fantasy, Crime