Not dreadful, but not great either
Summary
The Crow 2024 never stood a chance as the original Brandon Lee film is so beloved (especially by me) that anything that has come since has paled in comparison. I hesitate to call this a remake as it’s a totally different film and at least tries something new. The main problem is the first half is rather boring taking too long for Eric to become The Crow and give us some action. The Opera scene is nearly worth the wait and the film has some impressive kills, but despite being about two soulmates it still fails to make you feel anything.
Plot: Soulmates Eric Draven and Shelly Webster are brutally murdered when the demons of her dark past catch up with them. Given the chance to save his true love by sacrificing himself, Draven returns to seek bloody revenge against the killers, traversing the worlds of the living and the dead to put the wrong things right.
Review: I don’t think this movie ever stood a chance as everyone seemed to hate it for merely existing; this is the internet, after all. Brandon Lee’s The Crow is one of my favourite movies of all-time and to be honest I never had any interest in a remake either. There is a soulfulness to that movie which gives it extra emotional heft mostly due to Brandon’s tragic passing, but also Graeme Revell’s incredible score.
The trailers to his new movie showed that this wasn’t going to be a straight remake and might actually try something different. After watching it I can say that it does tread new ground and doesn’t even attempt to redo the original movie. The main characters are called Eric and Shelly and there is a crow, but this is a whole different beast.
It’s surprisingly slow in the first half with little to no action for nearly an hour and Eric doesn’t don the Crow make-up until near the end. Bill Skarsgård plays Eric with FKA twigs cast as Shelly and this story really focuses on their love affair and how they truly fall for each other. They are both “broken” by the world and are basically a pair of junkies, so when they find each other they become the best versions of themselves. Fate has other plans however as Shelly isn’t quite so innocent having ties to the villainous Vincent Roeg (Danny Houston, who always makes for a hateful antagonist). Her past catches up with her and Eric and Shelly are killed, but Eric is sent back to seek revenge on Vincent and his crew.
Danny Houston is great at looking mean and he is a nasty piece of work here, but aside from him none of the other villains are as memorable as Fun Boy, Top Dollar or the rest of the crew.
The Crow 2024 very much has its own visual style and is set in a grungier and dirtier version of our reality. Obviously, nothing will touch Brandon Lee’s performance, but Bill does make the role his own and is far different from the 1994 iteration of the character. What we have to remember is the original movie is still there and this doesn’t ruin it in any way. If anything, it may encourage people to go back and check it out as personally I consider it cinematic art.
The first half of this movie may be more of a love story, but the second half does have some awesome set-pieces and yes, the scene at the Opera is the obvious highlight as Eric takes out goons in epic style. This film is graphic with the violence with some impressive kills, but it forgets to make the audience feel something. It also uses some bizarre music choices for example, when Eric is putting on The Crow make-up, it plays Enya. That’s hardly a suiting up for war theme tune; the rest of the music fails to stand out and is as bland as most other modern movies. Bring back theme tunes!
By the end of the film, I was thinking “well, of all the films I’ve seen this year that was certainly one of them”. I don’t hate it like I’m supposed to, but it’s just in the middle where I found myself bored for the first half and wished the pacing had been better. The original was perfectly paced setting everything up quickly where we cared about Eric and Shelly and hated the villains. It wasted no time getting to the action and kept things tight for the entire runtime.
Overall, The Crow could never live up to the original movie and was doomed from the start however, it’s hardly the worst film of all-time as there are some slick action scenes, and it at least tries to do something different rather than just rehashing the same story. Judging by the box office it looks like it will be a dud and will either be quickly forgotten or develop a cult following.