Nerdly » ‘The Crow (2024)’ Blu-ray Review

27th Nov2024

‘The Crow (2024)’ Blu-ray Review

by Jasmine Valentine

Stars: Bill Skarsgård, FKA Twigs, Danny Huston | Written by Zach Baylin, William Schneider | Directed by Rupert Sanders

Eric Draven (Bill Skarsgård) and Shelly Webster (FKA Twigs) are tragically killed after being confronted by demons of their past. However, Eric — also known as The Crow — is given a chance at redemption by avenging Shelly’s death. In order to do so, he has to seek revenge against their killers, blurring the worlds between the living and the dead.

Strap yourselves in for this one, folks… because there’s almost nothing positive to say in this next 500 words. The Crow is the film nobody wanted yet everybody made sure they were vocally against, effectively dooming the movie from its infancy before we saw as much as a singular drab frame. Of course, the movie we did want happened back in 1994, with Brandon Lee becoming so synonymous with the titular character that it’s impossible to separate the two. It wasn’t a film to just watch, but experience, and it’s kept its rightful place as one of the greatest of its decade… if not longer.

Google the 2024 remake and you’ll see fans slating it as worse than Madame Web, and that tells you about all you need to know. The Crow debacle almost has to be completely separated from Skarsgård and Twigs themselves — there are only so many ways two people can try and polish the biggest turd on the cinematic landscape. Try as they might, they’re not doing much here, neither completely gelling together nor offering anything to the wider narrative. It’s a shame when you have Skarsgård, a man renowned for his commitment to the dark side, and Twigs, a performer known for their stratospheric creativity. In this instance, each is the victim of a bigger circumstance.

Things aren’t any rosier from a broader perspective. Each shot of The Crow is difficult to look at, drowning in its own sense of melancholy without being to offer any sense of nuance. If The Crow were a person, they’d be an insolent teenager going through their emo phase — indifferent, absolutely oblivious to the strain they can put on those around them, and besotted with grunge. The movie is as short-sighted as any kid in the throes of puberty can be… except unlike them, it never grows out of it.

The dialogue is just as mediocre as everything around it feels, which is never a helpful standpoint when you’re trying to redevelop an existing comic book character. Instead of lifting words off of a page to inspire something new, The Crow is regurgitating old, cheap ideas to create a sub-par version of something we have already seen. More than that, things feel dated. Sure, it’s never a good idea to take something so far into the present moment that it becomes a cheap generational gag, but things need to feel resonant. If we can’t have what we once had in 1994, we might as well leave it there.