The Crow (2024) - Film Review

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Eric is an artist and addict who is plagued by nightmares of his childhood trauma. While in rehab he meets Shelley, a gifted musician who is on the run from a wealthy crime lord named Vincent Roeg. The two escape from the facility, but Roeg's minions eventually catch up with them, killing them both. To his surprise, Eric is given the opportunity to return to the world of the living "to put the wrong things right" and rescue Shelly's soul from Hell.

The Crow (2024) is a reboot of the 1994, adapted from the 1989 comic by James O'Barr. It was directed by Rupert Sanders (director of Snow White and the Huntsmen and the live-action version of Ghost in the Shell). It stars Bill Skarsgård (from Hemlock Grove, Barbarian, and American Horror Story as Eric, and English singer-songwriter FKA Twigs as Shelly. Danny Huston (also from American Horror Story, as well as Wonder Woman and Digging Up the Marrow plays Roeg.

A lot of fans of the original film were upset about this reboot, which personally I think is silly. Don't get me wrong, the original film starring Brandon Lee is iconic. However, it still exists, and this movie doesn't take anything away from it. There have been many other versions of The Crow already, including the versions in the comics and other movies. It might have helped if the screenwriters had given the characters of Eric and Shelly different names since they bear almost no resemblance to the characters in the original film or the comic. However, as James O'Barr said in an interview , his intent was not to remake the movie but to re-adapt the book. Bill Skarsgård can't replace Brandon Lee, but I think he makes a decent tortured hero in his own right.

This movie was a box office bomb, and obviously, I'm in the minority having liked it, but I think it got a few things right. I liked that coming back from the dead didn't also magically grant Eric much in the way of combat skills, leaving him to rely largely on his immortality. He doesn't have to be fast or clever, he just needs to keep coming like a zombie. This led to the fight scene at the opera house, which was like something out of Deadpool, apart from not being played for laughs.

There is a lot of lingering on slightly over-the-top symbolism, but I'd be disappointed if a Crow movie didn't have that. It's just as cheesy and full of angst as I hoped. I did find myself missing the '90s soundtrack of the original film and the 1996 sequel The Crow: City of Angels, but it isn't the '90s any more, and the movie is set today so I suppose that's fair enough.

I wasn't entirely feeling the romance between Eric and Shelly, which seemed a little rushed, but I do keep complaining about movies being too long, so I suppose they needed to hurry up and get to the revenge part. Speaking of revenge, there is a lot of violence in this movie. Shelly and Eric's death scene is far more brutal than in the original, and part of it is shown in the trailer, so skip that if you're sensitive about that kind of thing. To be honest, skip this movie and the entire franchise if you don't want to see death and violence.

I feel like I need to be defensive at this point for liking The Crow at all, but I would hope it goes without saying that being a fan of a comic or a movie doesn't mean you support everything the characters in that piece of media do. Like a lot of people, I found plenty of things to like about The Crow, which I found in this new film as well. The Crow is about revenge, but also at least sometimes about love and redemption, and always, always about stalking around in goth makeup and a big leather coat.





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More articles by Jennifer Muirhead:
The Crow: Curare - Book Review
The X Files Conspiracy: The Crow - Book Review
3 Horror Comics To Read For Halloween
30 Days of Night - Book Review
3 Comics About Monsters
Bones and All - Film Review
Only Lovers Left Alive - Film Review