The Big Picture

The Crow
2024 remake diverges from the original 1994 aesthetic, focusing more on romance and modern visuals.
The reboot removes the rape scene, giving Shelly more depth, and provides new supernatural elements.
Bill Skarsgård and FKA Twigs shine as leads in this Gen Z successor, offering a blend of drama, action, and romance.

Inside of me, there are two wolves. Well, in this case, there are two crows. One who grew up being fed on a steady diet of Gothic horror action films like Underworld, Hellboy, Blade, and Queen of the Damned. That little crow loves black eyeliner, plastic jelly bracelets, suffered fishnet stockings for the aesthetic, and only wore black for a decade. That little emo corvid would have been obsessed with The Crow. But, then there is the other crow. This crow has seen a few more birthdays, watched a lot more movies, and experienced a whole lot more of life. That bird is far less impressed by this new reboot of a cult classic.

What I’m saying is that after I left the theater having seen this new version of The Crow, I found myself genuinely conflicted on what I thought of it. On one hand, this movie is essentially the bread and butter my teenage self survived off of. It’s dramatic, violent, obsessively romantic, and at the heart of it is a pair of doomed lovers. But just because it made me feel that way, did that mean it was actually good? It’s not an easy question to answer, at least not for me.

The Crow (2024) A modern re-imagining of the beloved character, The Crow, based on the original graphic novel by James O’Barr.Release Date June 7, 2024 Writers James O’Barr , Zach Baylin , William Josef Schneider Budget $50 Million Distributor(s) Lionsgate Expand

What ‘The Crow’ Improves On and What It Lacks Compared to the 1994 Original Film
The original film starring Brandon Lee was released 30 years ago, and watching the two Crow movies, you’d have a difficult time discerning that one is based on the other. While the 1994 film blankets a fictional Detroit in a moody, rainy atmosphere, completely indulging in the gothic style that stood out so starkly against other films of that year, the 2024 film backs away from this. Though the elements are there to make it more of a direct reboot, the 2024 film diverges sharply from The Crow’s original aesthetic. In many ways, lightening the dark gothic look of the 2024 film grounds Shelly (FKA Twigs) and Eric’s story. Their romance feels genuine and tangible, whereas the original film doesn’t hammer home the romantic element as well. But whereas the original film looked wholly unique, embracing Alex Proyas’ dark vision, visually there’s nothing truly unique about The Crow of 2024. You’d never catch Lee’s Eric Draven in what seems to be Versace boxers, but Skarsgård’s Eric has no qualms about donning a silky pair of expensive underwear. It might ruin the vision some have of Eric Draven, but it only goes to humanize him before tragedy strikes this couple.

In this movie, Eric and Shelly are both damaged individuals, broken people who fall head over heels in love with each other and tumble into a whirlwind romance. This film embraces youthful degeneracy. Shelly and Eric are tattooed from head to toe, each inking a representative symbol of a part of their lives. They do uppers, they drink champagne, they have copious amounts of sex, and they do it all in bright technicolor. There are no depressing greys and blacks. The world isn’t shrouded in rain and gloom until after Shelly meets her untimely end. While the original film focused almost exclusively on Eric’s journey and his desire for revenge, 2024’s The Crow gives us more time with our couple so we can watch their romance blossom. While this means that the mood of the film must shift dramatically after Shelly’s death, this is actually a point in the reboot’s favor. Although the 1994 Crow unabashedly leaned into its gothic identity, from the costuming to the score to the cinematography, there were no half measures; it came at the sacrifice of character development.

We never really know Sofia Shinas’ Shelly. She’s the classic fridged woman, killed so that the male protagonist can go on his journey of vengeance. Not only that but her rape at the hands of a group of criminals is played as something Eric must suffer through, not Shelly. This is where this new film excels. Shelly is not only given a personality but sits at the center of the conflict. Her issues with Danny Huston’s Vincent Roeg are a mini mystery within the story. Not only that, but the film thankfully rids this reboot of any sexual violence. Shelly’s rape, which is even more gruesome in the comic by James O’Barr, has never sat well with me. When it comes to sexual assault, female characters are subjected to rape to give the male lead something to feel righteous indignation over. It wasn’t about her survival of the attack or the trauma that she’s left with; it’s about the man’s pain. In this, Shelly’s story takes center stage, while Eric is merely the symbol of vengeance. There’s not a lot that The Crow (2024) does far better than the original film, but giving Shelly more to do and removing any elements of rape is a massive step up.

‘The Crow’ Doesn’t Know What Type of Movie It Wants To Be
Image via Lionsgate

The Crow pivots toward the supernatural after Shelly’s death. It makes it less about Eric taking on a small gang of local thugs like in the 1994 movie and more about him solving a larger mystery and conspiracy. While gang violence was a big concern during the 90s, here, Danny Huston’s Roeg embodies a more contemporary boogieman. Roeg lives in opulence and wields a massive amount of power as a rich man. He preys on innocent souls and is manipulative and even seductive at times. Roeg is also firmly rooted in the supernatural corner of this film. Huston is perfectly devious in the film, though there’s not much he has to do other than look menacing while ordering people like his right-hand woman Marian (Laura Birn) around. What director Rupert Sanders struggles with is that he introduced new elements of the supernatural and then forced himself to fill in the gaps with shoddy world-building and lore that make little sense. One of The Crow’s biggest flaws is that it doesn’t seem to realize that it can’t just spackle over narrative plot holes and gaps with larger spectacle scenes or dramatic conversations.

So many moments, upon closer inspection, don’t make much sense or pose questions we never get the answers to. At one point, Eric enters into a sort of limbo space between life and death and meets a mysterious man named Kronos (Sami Bouajila) and we’re treated to multiple infodumps whenever we end up there. This movie is trying to do too much, and where it fails is when it tries to jam both a tragic romance and a supernatural action film into one piece. The only way to explain to the audience how Eric gets his powers, which is left ambiguous in the original, is by downloading the info via a long conversation. Rather than flow naturally into this next part, here the film is telling us overtly, “We are moving to the next chapter, get ready.” This transition is by no means smooth, and while some of the action sequences are fun, with one slaughter-fest being particularly gory, it’s disappointing to leave the love story, which has so much more narrative weight behind it. Struggling through an identity crisis, The Crow is doing too much and, as a result, doesn’t do enough to serve its core narrative.

Related How ‘The Crow’ Was Completed After Brandon Lee’s Death ‘The Crow’ found a way to honor Brandon Lee without disrespecting his legacy.

There’s Still Something To Love in ‘The Crow’ and It’s the Leads
Image via Lionsgate

That all being said, this is not an irredeemable movie. In fact, once I got the signal that the story was shifting gears, it wasn’t as hard to enjoy the second part of the film as much as the first. What powers the first half is Bill Skarsgård and FKA Twigs. While the dialogue is abysmal at points, Skarsgård and Twigs make up for it with ample amounts of chemistry on screen with each other. Yes, these two are really attractive people, but that’s not all they are. If anyone can match Eric Draven’s freak, it seems to be Shelly Webster. Both have dark pasts that are unfortunately unexplored, both have a bit of dramatic emo energy to them, and both seem eager to dive into their co-dependent relationship. It’s by no means the portrait of a healthy romance, but that’s not what we came here for.

From beginning to bitter end, Shelly and Eric are deeply in love. There’s no denying that they have found their “person” in the world and they are almost blissfully happy. Where we are meant to come to that conclusion in the original 1994 film on our own, the 2024 movie shows us their love story. It gives weight to Eric’s motivations because we know how lonely he was before Shelly, and how complete he felt with her. When they’re not telling each other awful jokes or reading Rimbaud in a literal meadow, they’re wrapped up in each other’s arms and attached at the hip. Skarsgård is especially convincing as a romantic lead, managing to embrace not only Eric’s brooding awkwardness but also a charisma that comes naturally when he’s on-screen with Twigs. Twigs has the added burden of playing out some of the more dramatic scenes, and while they aren’t always perfect, there is a sort of performative melodrama to her Shelly that is flawed but impossible to look away from.

When it comes time for Eric to get his powers, Skarsgård transforms from a relatively soft-spoken, gentle giant into a one-man killing machine. The bloodiest scenes in this movie might actually be too much for some viewers. At one point, there is so much blood everywhere I’m shocked there aren’t stories of actors slipping all over the corn syrup during these scenes. Eric’s transformation into John Wick’s very tall, very emo son is gradual. If you don’t know, Eric’s “power” is that he is essentially invincible. As a sort of ghost of vengeance, he can’t be killed. But this new movie’s reasoning is different from the original’s. So, at the beginning, he is basically a punching bag against the bad guys who are sent his way. He’s shot multiple times, run over, beaten, stabbed. Each time we watch as his body knits back together in scenes that almost feel Cronenbergian.

But as he levels up, so to speak, he achieves full Wick status, and his final action sequences are admittedly very fun to watch. One minute a jaw is ripped off, another minute Eric is skewering multiple people like they’re on a shish kabob. It oftentimes borders on comedy with how vicious he can be, but, hey, these are bad guys! We aren’t really meant to feel bad for any of these people who have no qualms with killing innocents, right? The Crow loses a lot of its complexity at this point (if it ever had much to begin with), and bonks us over the head with the true message and takeaway of the story so we don’t miss it. It’s about as subtle as a 6’4″ invincible Swedish man who walks around shirtless and is covered in tattoos that you would not want to grow old into.

‘The Crow’ Is More of a Spiritual Successor

I know, it sounds like I hated this movie, or at the very least, it sounds like I’m having too much fun making fun of this movie. But what is true is that spiritually, this film is a perfect Gen Z successor to the original film. I checked into this movie fully expecting a bit of cheese, some clunky dialogue, and a story that operates purely on vibes. That’s what I got. This film was trapped in development hell for so long, with a bevy of names linked to Eric’s character from Tom Hiddleston to Jason Momoa to Mark Wahlberg. And when I think of what those movies could have been, I will happily embrace Skarsgård and Twigs with both arms. For those who likely rolled their eyes at the laundry list of movies I first listed at the top of this review… Well, let’s be real. You were never going to watch this movie anyway. But, if you enjoy these types of movies, if you too had an emo phase at 13, if you spent too much time writing awful poetry and discussing surrealism, this is a throwback to a unique point in our cinematic memory, and that alone is worth the price of admission.

REVIEW The Crow (2024) The Crow is a flawed love story that stumbles but embraces its gothic and emo roots.ProsBill Skarsgård and FKA Twigs have great romantic chemistry and Skarsgård is a convincing romantic lead. ConsThe dialogue is often clunky, relying more on the performance of the actors than the written lines.The film struggles between being a romantic tragedy and a bloody revenge film.The reboot includes new elements of lore and worldbuilding that bog the story down rather than uplift it.

The Crow comes to theaters in the U.S. starting August 23. Click below for showtimes near you.

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