by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: $6.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Bill Skarsgård, FKA Twigs, Danny Huston, Josette Simon, Laura Birn, Sami Bouajila
Intro:
Tepid, unconvincing, overlong and genuinely draining.
First, a quick note. Although your humble word janitor attempts to treat his job with as much objectivity as humanly possible, he is also a middle aged Gen Xer who spent much of his twenties getting sweaty in goth clubs. Consequently, the 1994 version of The Crow is something of a foundational fillum and any opinions he has about the remake are likely somewhat coloured by this fact. That said, the following review is 100% correct and, honestly, a bit heroic and handsome.
For some dim bulb bloody reason, they’ve been trying to remake The Crow (1994) since around 2008. This, despite the fact that out of the four films made (The Crow, The Crow: City of Angels, The Crow: Salvation and The Crow: Wicked Prayer) and the short lived telly show, The Crow: Stairway to Heaven, only the original has been worth a damn. Director Alex Proyas crafted something gripping, beautiful and sad, a gorgeous modern fairytale and a unique vision based on the cult comic book series by James O’Barr. It was also the final performance of Brandon Lee, an actor whose accidental death during the shoot remains an awful, senseless tragedy.
Look, if we’re being extra generous, perhaps the idea of a remake of The Crow could work. After all, John Carpenter’s The Thing is a remake and one of the greatest films ever made, but here’s the difference: Carpenter had a vision. When Cronenberg remade The Fly in 1986? He had a vision. When director Rupert Sanders (Ghost in the Shell) remade The Crow… we don’t know what the hell he had, but it wasn’t good.
The Crow (2024) tells the story of Eric Draven (Bill Skarsgård) who, while trying to get clean in a rehab that was apparently designed by the Squid Game art department, meets troubled musician, Shelly (FKA Twigs). The two are immediately attracted to one another and soon form a relationship. It’s like When Harry Met Sally with methadone! All is not sunshine and puppies, however, because Shelly has a secret and it (eventually) gets her and Eric killed. Luckily, a supernatural entity named Kronos (Sami Bouajila) gives Eric the power to return to the land of the living to get revenge, with a helpful corvid chum and a few make-up tips to boot. The action then plays out like the original Crow, except slower, duller, far less visually interesting and without an ounce of wit, charm or excitement.
The soundtrack isn’t bad, though.
The problems with The Crow (2024) are legion. First up, the casting. Bill Skarsgård, who is actually a pretty solid actor, is woefully miscast in this role. Instead of Brandon Lee’s demonic harlequin take on the role, this modern version of Eric seems more like a festy gronk who constantly steals your lighter. He’s placid and ineffective for most of the film, and when he finally comes alive, all he seems to do is take down a thousand faceless goons and some bad guys who are so thinly developed you’re unlikely to be able to remember their names. FKA Twigs does okay(ish) as Shelly, but her relationship with Eric never feels more passionate than “we like necking pingers and rooting”. Which, while fun, certainly doesn’t feel like a coupling worthy of breaking the surly bonds of mortality.
The script is abysmal and leaden, seeming not to realise that we’ve seen this ‘revenge from beyond the grave’ plot a thousand times before (hell, even the original owed a debt to RoboCop, a film from 1987) and is brought to shambling unlife by Rupert Sanders who seems to be listlessly phoning it in, showcasing very little of the visual flair for which he’s known.
Of course, the biggest question that hangs over The Crow (2024) is “why?” Why remake a film from such a specific point in time? What was the mission statement here? From whence sprung the inspiration? Who was asking for this artless, thuddingly dull and meandering stumble that achieves none of the original’s poetry and doesn’t even work as its own thing? There are so many other, potentially interesting ways to have gone with this. Perhaps a gritty version more faithful to O’Barr’s comic book? What about an Aussie-centric version called The Magpie, where Eric swoops evildoers while they’re trying to pop down to the shops?
What about anything that’s not the dead-behind-the-eyes, soulless excretion this ended up being?
Because even if you ignore the original, The Crow (2024) is simply a bad film. Tepid, unconvincing, overlong and genuinely draining. To paraphrase Jane Siberry, “it can’t drain all the time” and eventually the bloody thing ends. However, unless you have a streak of masochism wider than a crow’s wingspan, you’re better off avoiding this garbage-eating bin chicken.
