With great apprehension, we went to see the remake of The Crow to see how this new adaptation treated the source material.
*note: this review contains minor spoilers for The Crow
It is important to start this review by making it known that I am a huge fan of The Crow starring Brandon Lee. I personally was against anyone remaking The Crow, as I feel that some stories should not be touched again. However, when I saw the cast and the trailers for this new take on The Crow, I was willing to give it a chance. After all, it’s been 30 years, maybe this adaptation could bring something new to the table.
I will give the filmmakers this much credit: they did attempt to bring something new to the table. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work.
As you might expect with an adaptation of The Crow, the story features the star-crossed love story of Eric Draven and his girlfriend Shelley. When both are cruelly murdered, Eric is brought back by a crow to set this massive wrong right. That, as far as I’m concerned is where the film’s similarities to the source material end.
The Crow
Directed By: Rupert Sanders
Written By: Zach Baylin, William Schneider
Based on: The Crow by James O’Barr
Starring: Bill Skarsgard, FKA Twigs, Danny Huston
Release Date: August 23, 2024
What really hampers The Crow is that the story takes far too long to get going. The entire film is plagued by pacing issues, especially in the first act. I can understand the desire to properly flesh out Eric and Shelley’s relationship before pulling the metaphorical trigger on the plot, but this was not the way to do it.
And even when Eric is brought back to enact his vengeance, the story still doesn’t take off. It’s a constant back and forth of “start and stop” until the last act of the film. The film’s final act is what partially redeemed the film for me, as that is when I finally felt like I was seeing the film we were promised in the trailers. The action in the opera house is gloriously bloody, but it was also something we should’ve gotten throughout and not just at the end of the film.
Then there’s the film’s antagonist. I feel like the filmmakers misstepped in creating a new villain for this story. Part of what made the original film work as well as it did is that it drew on the characters that appeared in the comic book. In this film, the only recognizable characters are Eric, Shelley and, of course, the crow. With all these changes, not to mention a potentially interesting villain that we ultimately learn very little about, this feels very unlike a “Crow” film until, as stated before, close to the end. If several sequences featured in the final act had appeared instead in the second act (after Eric is brought back), this would’ve been a much improved film.
The Crow does get some things right. One of its best features is the visual aesthetic of the film. The city is dark, rainy, and there’s a general feel of griminess, which is fitting considering this is the world of The Crow. I especially like the “in between realm” where Eric ends up after dying. This is an aspect that wasn’t really explored in the original film and it felt like an extension of the Crow mythos that didn’t feel forced and worked rather well.
I also, as a musicologist, really appreciated how the film utilized music throughout. In particular, there’s the aforementioned sequence in the opera house that is far and away the best part of the film. Watching Eric fight his way through a number of enemies to the strains of Meyerbeer’s opera Robert le diable is a sight to behold and I genuinely wish the rest of the film lived up to the bar set by this scene.
Ultimately, The Crow is full to the brim with potential. The star power is there, the acting ability is certainly there, but almost none of it is used properly. This could’ve been a proper update of The Crow story, but instead it’s likely to be remembered as the remake that failed to launch. I won’t go so far as to say that the film should be hated and avoided, as the film isn’t all bad. However, it never once reaches its full potential and is very likely to leave the viewer feeling disappointed.
