Movie Review : The Crow (2024)
A movie like Alex Proyas' The Crow would've been fucking trashed critics had it came out in 2024. It would've been described as a juvenile fantasy for incels that attempts to piggyback the Batman gravy train a decade too late. It's not completely off base as it is a movie aimed primarily at tormented teenagers, but I'd claim that it's what makes its charm. A possible remake was the worst idea I could think of, but I'm a fan of bad ideas. So, I was in theaters on opening night to see The Crow and you know what?
It was nowhere near as bad as I though even if it was received pretty much like I figured the original would’ve been.
This is more of a retelling of The Crow than it is a remake. Eric (the always brilliant Bill Skarsgard) is not a rockstar, but rather a troubled youth who meets a talented musician named Shelly (FKA Twigs) at a correctional institution of some sort. They escape together after she gets freaked out by unannounced visitors and soon enough you know what I'm going to say, they get viciously murdered for holding on to a compromising video and Eric comes back from the dead to avenge the purity of their love.
A Kinetic Ballet of Love & Death
How do you even judge a movie when : 1) it sounds stupid and childish on paper and 2) you know exactly how it's going to end? Forget what you already know about The Crow. Did it make you feel something? Eric and Shelly die right off the bat in the original, but Rupert Sanders makes you spend quite some time with them while they’re alive and it ushers a whole other dynamic. This is almost entirely embodies through the chemistry between Bill Skarsgard and FKA Twigs, but it works.
Some of the details as to why Eric and Shelly are so broken feel a little clumsy. For example, I don't what the fuck was the story of young Eric, his drugged-up mom and a dying white horse was about (since when trailer park people own horses?), but you feel Eric's pain even if it doesn't make complete sense. Pain doesn't have to for as long as you feel it. When he loses Shelly, the whole pattern of him not being able to keep nice things in his life repeats and feel for the guy. Therefore his quest for vengeance has stakes.
He needs to set things right for the one person in his life that lifted him above his own bullshit. That is mostly done through excruciating amounts of violence, but it feels honest. The bodies don't disappear outside the frame never to be spoken of again like in Marvel movies. The violence in The Crow is gruesome and crushing. It feels nasty and real like in Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive. The scenario never strays from the idea that Eric sacrifices himself for something that will be entirely theoretical to him.
Faustian Times
There's also a new antagonist in this movie. The folkloric and immortal Top Dollar has been replaced by the literally immortal Vincent Roeg (Danny Huston) who's feeding souls to the devil in exchange for…uh, I guess aging very slowly? Evil has always been very conceptual in The Crow universe and in both films, its a reflection of its time. Back then, the big, bad boogeyman was drugs and now it's unchecked white male privilege so that's what Rupert Sanders put our goth superhero against.
I have no idea why they thought it was a good idea to put the myth of Faust in this movie except that it sounds goth as fuck, but I don't think it bothered the screenwriters. Vincent Roeg has one job only and it's to be the head villain, so he struts around the movie doing evil stuff competently enough I guess? He never really feels threatening. He's borderline a case of top hat and twirly mustache villain. It didn't bother me much though as he's merely an evil reflection of the bargain Eric takes to save Shelly.
*
The Crow is melodramatic and sometimes confusing, but it's by design. I believe there's very little in this movie you actually need to pay attention to outside of the connection between Eric and Shelly. If you get the stakes of losing her for Eric, the egregious amount of ultraviolent scenes will feel justified for you and you'll have a good time with this movie. So, you can mute the critics on this one. Maybe it's worth waiting for VOD before seeing it, but I'm telling everyone's wrong about The Crow except me.
7.3/10
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