Written by: Ryan Dailey
To paraphrase the 1994 Proyas/Lee cult classic, “I guess it’s not a good day to be a Crow fan.” The Crow 2024 suffers from Ghostbusters: Answer the Call syndrome. Reboot a classic franchise that has a devout following and a fan base that center their entire beings around their favorite intellectual properties and completely ignore all of the facets that made the originals great. This will be the only mention of the 1994 original in this review, as tearing the reboot apart compared to the classic is too easy and too obvious, as there are a multitude of reviews that will do just that.
No, Horror-Nation, The Crow 2024 can be completely dismantled on its own “merit.”
One of the biggest glaring issues of the film is the title of the movie is The Crow, yet Eric (Bill Skarsgard) does not become the titular seeker of revenge until the third act, at which point, the film becomes a Hot Topic/Tik Tok John Wick parody. While the fight scenes in the final act are not entirely terrible, if you want to see Bill engaged in fight sequences that blow the ones in this film out of the water, rent or buy Boy Kills World. At least in that film, Bill acted like he wanted to be in that one. And speaking of phoned-in, wooden performances, Shelley, played by FKA twigs, did not turn in an award winning performance, either. Britney Spears in Crossroads comes to mind.
The plot could have been conceived by an “edgy” 14 year old, typing fan fiction into an AI generator. The dialogue is terrible, the characters are unlikable and the make awful, ignorant decisions, even for two drug-addled junkies and the setting has zero personality.
O’Barr’s original graphic novel is a masterpiece of supernatural revenge and dealing with loss. The city was a character. The presentation set the mood for the entire franchise. This film lacks all of these qualities and more. Instead, the movie going audience is given two hours of following an Ozympic Jelly Roll and his SoundCloud girlfriend as they basically party, have sex and decide to not leave town, even though a supernatural crime lord is hot on their heels to retrieve an incriminating video Shelley has on her phone.
This film is an abomination to the medium. The Crow can be anyone in any time period of any age. Hollywood dropped the ball by not crafting a tale out of the one IP that could literally check all of the virtue signaling, woke boxes and have it actually pertain to the story in a cohesive way. And if Tinsel Town insists on doing a continuation of the Eric and Shelley universe, it would have made more sense to weave a tale of Darla from the first movie being hunted down for a drug deal gone bad from her days as an addict, Sarah and Darla are murdered, Sarah takes up the mantle of The Crow.
Do yourselves a favor, Horror-Nation. Read or reread the original comic. Listen to the OST of the 94 film. Take solace in the fact that Rupert Sanders can not take away the one beloved film that we have and that his surviving abortion of a film will slowly and quietly sink into the same abyss that swallowed the three sequels and the television show, never to hurt us again.