Summary

The Crow
features solid action scenes with modern gun fighting and gore, but suffers from lackluster emotion.
Visual effects enhance the film with realistic CGI, showcasing gruesome kills and Bill Skarsgård’s convincing portrayal of his healing factor.
Legacy sequels like
The Crow
face challenges in replicating original performances, falling short due to insufficient writing.

You can’t go a month in 2024 without some kind of legacy sequel andThe Crow (2024) is August’s contribution. Even by the standards of the current movie industry, to have Twisters, Gladiator II and The Crow come out within months of each other is overkill. That’s to say nothing of new legacy sequels like Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. The Crow has the right idea but suffers from all the classic pitfalls of the worst version of all these films.

Fans of the original 1994 movie, directed by Alex Proyas, might not even be aware the new Crow movie exists due to the strangely sparse marketing campaign. Casual audiences have no reason to seek it out. Director Rupert Sanders (Ghost in the Shell) and writer Zach Baylin’s (King Richard) adaptation of James O’Barr’s comic falls flat on its face.

When Eric (Bill Skarsgård) and Shelly (FKA Twigs) escape rehab, they instantly form a connection. The two love birds enjoy a substance-fueled fling and think they have found a soulmate in each other. However, when tragedy takes Shelly away from Eric, his undying soul is brought back with a single purpose: Kill the ones who killed his beloved. He eventually gets the hang of being immortal and begins his quest for vengeance in earnest. Reality itself is shifted when he’s thrust between life and death and must decide his soul’s worth. Either way, no one is safe from Eric’s ire.

The Crow Remake’s Action Is Great
Though it’s what also hold the film back
Image via Lionsgate

The action in The Crow is solid and the film is not scared to get gory. The modern gun fighting and slasher-style knife work make the movie sing. In a scene cut against an opera, Skarsgård double skewers two goons and cuts another one’s face in half. Though this doesn’t make up for an average film with a lackluster screenplay, it does provide for a few spectacular scenes.

… [
The Crow
] reveals the lack of emotion at the center of the plot. That’s a problem if we’re meant to invest in Eric’s revenge to begin with.

Visual effects technology has made it possible to regrow limbs in a far more realistic way. It cannot be denied that the CGI in the film is both good and deployed at the right times. Credit to all the stunt performers who really sell some of the more wild kills involving broken bones and blood splatter. Skargsård himself does a great job selling his character’s healing factor. When his leg breaks and he snaps it back into place, we feel his screams of anguish and we’re grossed out by the reality of what is onscreen.

Ironically, it is also the action-oriented approach that truly keeps this film from being great. The John Wick-ification of action films permeates through all revenge films these days, but in the case of The Crow, it also reveals the lack of emotion at the center of the plot. That’s a problem if we’re meant to invest in Eric’s revenge to begin with.

If the film had a different name and was just another action movie, it would likely come and go — forgettable and inoffensive. But with so much history attached to the film’s title, the expectations and standards are much higher. Sadly, those standards are not met. Worse, they’re disappointing.

The Crow Remake Still Lives In The Original Movie’s Shadow
Bill Skarsgård’s performance is good, but can’t top Brandon Lee’s

Skarsgård is good as the titular character, but Brandon Lee’s work is not the kind of performance that can be replicated. That’s no one’s fault but Hollywood’s, though, as the industry aims to revisit so many classics. As we move past remaking movies like Point Break and enter the realm of cult classic movies like The Crow, it is on us to recognize that nothing is sacred. That said, it is still the responsibility of these legacy sequels to deliver a good product, regardless of how we feel about it.

If we’re extremely lucky, we get a movie like Top Gun: Maverick. Otherwise, what we’re left with is 2024’s The Crow — a movie that means well, looks solid and is brimming with acting talent, but has neither the script nor the soul to bring home the bacon.

The Crow is now playing in theaters. The film is 111 minutes long and rated R for strong bloody violence, gore, sexuality/nudity, and drug use.