The Crow

A murdered man comes back to right the wrongs that were committed in The Crow. While serving time in a rehab facility, Eric Draven (Bill Skarsgård) meets and falls for Shelly Webster (FKA Twigs), who he helps escape from Marion (Laura Birn), a woman working for Vincent Roeg (Danny Huston), a crime lord who made a deal with the devil to take innocent souls to hell in exchange for immortality. While Eric and Shelly enjoy a period of bliss with each other, the latter’s dark past catches up with them and they are both murdered by Roeg’s henchmen. However, Eric wakes up in an afterlife limbo, where he is guided by the crow spirit Kronos (Sami Bouajila) to return to the world of the living and seek bloody vengeance against Roeg.

The Crow Synopsis

Three decades after the original 1994 The Crow, starring the late Brandon Lee, Rupert Sanders (Ghost in the Shell) directs this new reimagining of the 1989 comic book series by James O’Barr. The film stars Bill Skarsgård (IT, Barbarian) as the new heavily-tattooed depiction of the vengeful protagonist Eric Draven. Skarsgård is joined by British pop star FKA Twigs as Eric Draven’s finance Shelly Webster, whose dark past becomes the motive for both of them to be brutally murdered.

When he is guided back to life by the crow of the afterlife, Eric finds any wounds he sustains quickly heal, as long as his love for Shelly remains pure. He uses these newfound abilities to track down those who murdered him and Shelly. This all builds towards a very bloody climax and confrontation with Vincent Roeg.

My Thoughts on The Crow

In its three decades of existence, 1994’s The Crow has become a major cult classic, in no small part due to the tragic death of Brandon Lee, who was killed on set by a faulty blank. The film was followed by three sequels, only the first of which was released theatrically, each featuring a new protagonist taking on the mantle of the titular supernatural antihero. Now The Crow is receiving the full-on reboot treatment, with screenwriters Zach Balin (King Richard, Creed III) and William Josef Schneider readapting the original comic series by James O’Barr. And the result is a major bore.

Of the nearly two-hour running time of The Crow, only the final 40 minutes of the film sees Eric Draven become the face-painted antihero everyone associates with the character. Much of the film’s first half is spent on the tragic romance between Eric Draven and Shelly Webster, which takes up too much of the narrative. The second act of the film is spent with Eric playing detective and tracking down those who killed himself and Shelly.

Admittedly, the very gory climactic setpiece of The Crow, involving Eric Draven massacring henchmen at the opera, is arguably the film’s best sequence. However, as I have already mentioned, it arrives after 80 minutes of brooding gothic melodrama that almost had me falling asleep. Even a solid villainous performance can’t fully save The Crow as being dull as hell.

Admittedly, I am giving this criticism without having ever seen the original The Crow from 1994, having only seen the much lower-quality 1996 sequel The Crow: City of Angels. I am sure that The Crow has a large enough fanbase that will probably help make this film a success. At the same time, there are probably those who look at the heavily tattooed Bill Skarsgård and go “Not My Eric Draven.”

Trailer for The Crow