“The Crow”: Disrespecting Classics Again

Based on the 1994 film, starring Brandon Lee, the reboot of The Crow has been one of the biggest box office flops of the year.

Summary

Eric and Shelly, a young couple trying to escape a turbulent past, are brutally murdered.

The tragic circumstances of the incident provide Eric with the chance to save his love by setting things right in the world of the living. He will come back from the dead with one mission: to take revenge on each one of the people implicated in the destruction of his and Shelly’s lives.

A Sad Parody of the Original

As we all know, Hollywood has no original ideas anymore, so it has to take old projects and twist them until they become unrecognizable. This tragic destiny has befallen yet another classic. Today’s victim is none other than The Crow. This new version is technically not a remake, but a reimagination of the 1994 movie and the comics that inspired it.

Through Eric Draven’s character, the original project explored the despair at losing a loved one and the fight to find justice. There is also a distinctive visual style that characterizes the film.

*Skarsgård looks like he is dressing up as the Crow for Halloween.*

The 2024 version tried to emulate that visual style, but eliminated all the substance. It seems the director really liked the dark aesthetic, and that was all. It also has the need to overexplain everything. Every detail of Eric’s situation needs to be spelled out, because we are too dumb to understand it on our own.

Another important aspect of the original, the action sequences, are some of the most boring scenes in the remake. There is violence, there is blood, but emotion is missing. Besides poor direction and script, I believe we can attribute that to the characters being ruined.

Eric and Shelly’s Love

Eric’s love for Shelly is the heart of the story, the reason that drives all his actions. In the original, we only get to see Shelly through flashbacks, which are Eric’s memories of their time together. This makes their story feel very intimate and helps us understand the protagonist’s suffering in all its intensity. It’s not about Shelly herself, but what she means to Eric and how far he is willing to go to find justice for her. So even though she is not the protagonist, Shelly’s presence is a constant in the movie.

The new film’s brilliant idea is to give Shelly a tragic backstory and center on how she and Eric met and fell in love. But the way things were handled made the love story lose any trace of meaning.

*The movie tries to sell you these two as a sweet couple, but they are the kind of people you would cross the street to avoid.*

We spend almost an hour of the film watching a montage of two uninteresting characters doing drugs, getting tattoos, being half naked, and whispering corny and meaningless phrases to one another. They also look like they could use a shower.

Instead of deepening our understanding of Shelly and Eric’s bond, we are left with a surface-level relationship that inspires nothing but indifference. And if his love for Shelly loses all meaning, Eric’s quest for revenge does as well.

Both Bill Skarsgård and FKA Twigs are terrible in their roles. Their performances transmit absolutely nothing, and they stand inexpressive for the entirety of the running time.

Box Office Numbers

The Crow has had the reception it deserves. With a production budget of $50.000.000, the film has made a sad $12.736.353 worldwide in the three weekends since its release, according to The Numbers. Box Office Mojo sets the numbers a little higher, at $18.665.978.

One way or another, the film has been a huge failure.

Another miss for 2024.