The Crow (2024) Movie Review: A Retelling of Vengeance and Love
The Crow 2024 Movie Review Movie info
Description
Soulmates Eric Draven and Shelly Webster are brutally murdered when the demons of her dark past catch up with them. Given the chance to save his true love by sacrificing himself, Draven returns to seek bloody revenge against the killers, traversing the worlds of the living and the dead to put the wrong things right.
Release date: August 21, 2024 (France) Director: Rupert Sanders Distributed by: Lionsgate, Lionsgate Films Adapted from: The Crow Budget: $50 million Cinematography: Steve Annis
The Crow 2024 Movie Review Safe to say if this is bad, some Hollywood folks are going to eat some crow. Eating crow, not good. What is good to eat?
And now, so, The Crow is the 2024 remake of The Crow. I know some people get irritated, if not angry, at calling this a remake. It’s not a remake; it’s a retelling of the graphic novel. Sure, counterargument—the 1994 movie bears a much stronger resemblance to the source material, to the graphic novel, than this new movie does. And not in a “foot versus the torso photo finish” kind of way. We’re talking by a clear mile. But in this Crow movie, Eric Draven—played by Bill Skarsgard this time around—was just called Eric on IMDb. Do they ever call him Draven? I don’t remember. But Eric and Shelly meet in rehab. They break out of rehab to go do some Molly and get drunk in this penthouse. True love and all that. I mean, it might have been Molly. I’m not a huge drug connoisseur. They definitely put pills on their tongues and washed them down with beers. Moments like that are when it becomes more clear the chasm between my old man energy and the younger audiences that Hollywood’s trying to reach these days.
The Crow (2024) Movie Review: A Dark Retelling of Vengeance and Love
For reference, I took a picture of this and sent it to a friend while I was at a thrift store. I saw this and almost bought it. In fact, I might go back tomorrow and get it, just so you know where I’m coming from here. And we know how the story is going to go—Eric and Shelly get murdered, and Eric comes back to life to exact vengeance in the name of love. So, fun weekend in a penthouse. That probably was the kind of love that one sees in death, for we hear how great their love is, but do you feel it? To be fair to the movie, I feel like this movie was supposed to be longer. Just in terms of certain edits here and there, I was like, “I feel like we’re missing a scene.” Even some of the flashbacks with those two, I was like, “Maybe it was more than just a weekend, might have been a whole week, who knows?” Which, counterexample, maybe it was love because when they’re staying in this penthouse together, she’s like, “Oh yeah, this belongs to a friend of mine, but he’s out of town. He lets me crash here. Also, his clothes seem to fit you.” So, this was just some 6’4″ tall, very successful guy who can afford this place, and Eric asks no questions? Had to have been love. Only love makes you that blind and stupid. The Crow 2024 Movie Review
Plot Overview: Eric Draven’s Dark Journey
But as this movie was going on, I definitely felt a problem here. Unlike the original Crow movie, which relied on flashbacks to fill you in on the past of Eric and Shelly so Eric can rise from the dead, punch his mirror, get his war paint on, and be ready to go by minute 16 of the film, now this 2024 Crow film is chronological. We see Shelly and Eric meet. We hang out with them. We get to know them before they die. Which, even when I’m saying it out loud, sounds like a great idea. Only thing is, they’re not that interesting. She seems fun enough before she just completely fucks off and disappears after she’s killed. Eric just seems like a really broody, boring, emo dude. I thought they did fine for the material they had in that Jesse Pinkman and Jane “hope they get past this phase in their lives before one of them accidentally ODs” kind of way. And his character has kind of a weird arc. They don’t play up the fact that he’s this immortal kind of navigating the world outside the rules of mortal law. Now, for a large part of this film, he’s this uncertain young man who just happens to not be able to die. But he does still feel pain. He gets shot, he gets his leg broken, he screams, he feels it. He doesn’t really come into his immortal confidence until the last act of the movie.
Directorial Style: A New Vision for a Classic Tale
Which, by comparison, if we’re comparing to the original Crow movie, it’s kind of like Eric Draven finally dons the crow makeup and feels like the crow about the time he shows up at that council to kill Skank. And while there is something interesting you can do with that, the end result is it feels like wasted time. It almost looked like they were going to play with the idea that Eric had been this specter of vengeance and so given himself over to it that he’s kind of been separated from his humanity and he’s starting to go mad. Then the movie was like, “Oh, oops, we didn’t mean to. Back to the action, that was a close one. We don’t want a thinking piece here, that was almost disastrous.” Because this movie tries to overexplain the lore, tries to overcook the bad guy, like the main bad guy, otherwise known as the bad guy who actually stands out. Granted, he’s played by Danny Houston, that’s usually a shoe-in for having someone, a bad guy, who’s going to stand out. At the very least, he’s going to know the assignment, he’s going to do the job. Think of how you think the bad guy is going to be based on the fact that Danny Houston’s playing him. That’s exactly how the bad guy is in this movie, with some more bullshit tacked on that just drags the movie down. I’ll get to it in a second.
You can peel back layers of themes all you want, but in its bones, this is The Crow. When you die, a crow takes your soul to the other side, the spirit world. But if the crime is so heinous, sometimes the soul can’t rest, so the crow will bring your soul back so you can right the wrongs. There we go, that’s it. Boil it down, that’s it. And to that core, there’s the theme of love. Love is the nucleus of The Crow. The original Crow movie wasn’t even that bloody at all. The James O’Barr graphic novel is definitely bloodier, but I never felt the blood was front and center. It was a byproduct. It never felt like the point. This 2024 Crow movie definitely brings blood and gore to the forefront. It’s kind of revolving around it. And then I swear to God, these are the working parts of the plot: Eric and Shelly are murdered. The crow takes his soul, I guess to the halfway point between here and the afterlife. Shelly’s soul is being pulled to hell because the big bad guy is some sort of acolyte of the devil, and he can curse good people to go to hell when they die. In order to stop that from happening and save her, he has to come back and kill the people who killed them. I feel like if he just killed the main baddie who cursed her, I feel like the curse would be gone. And he’s only immortal and unable to die as long as he has faith in her and their love. And the moment he starts doubting that, well, he’s not so immortal anymore, and he can die now.
Atmosphere and Cinematography: Capturing the Gothic Tone
Again, that is—I don’t—look at me, I didn’t write it, right? Why not overcomplicate a very simple concept—the concept of crossing death for love? But you know, it’s Hollywood. They hate romance, they hate love, they don’t even know how to write it if they wanted to. It’s a movie that feels like it was adapted by someone who had never seen The Crow or read The Crow but had heard about The Crow from someone and made a movie accordingly.
This movie feels like the cinematic version of those guys who were dressed up like a bunch of Batmans at the beginning of The Dark Knight. You have a guy in the costume, but the guy doesn’t actually feel like the spirit of the character. This is a Crow movie wearing hockey pads. Best I could say it. It’s easy to say on the surface, yeah, Eric Draven comes back to kill people, but you’re missing the fact that he’s actually kind of funny. He’s a person who loved life. Therein is the tragedy—got Darla clean so she could at least try to be a good mother, played devil’s advocate with Sarah to show how the rain can sometimes be a good thing.
The Crow 2024 Movie Review: Sound Design and Score: Enhancing the Dark Aesthetic
This Eric Draven’s like, “I was dead. It sucked. These pills suck.” So now I feel nothing, but I guess I gotta kill these people now. In this movie, I guess we have Bill Skarsgard as The Crow, the second creepiest Skarsgard. And I say this knowing the internet’s going to hear me, and then we’re all going to hear, “Actually, Stellan is the creepiest Skarsgard.” No, Stellan is the most stoic of the Skarsgards. I suppose “creepy” is just shorthand. I mean Skarsgard who would be the best Halloween horror movie actor, Bill’s number two. But Bill Skarsgard, he’s great. He’s an actor who, for lack of a better way to put it, when he gets a good director to push him in the right way, when you get that collaboration between actor and director, he nails it.
Otherwise, he seems kind of aimless. And I feel that’s what it was in this movie. Just felt like the direction was, “All right, you get your war paint on, you’re angry. Now be the Joker from Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Just kind of talk like the Joker in Zack Snyder’s Justice League.” And the movie does that for a bit. I know the Joker can feel like the Crow at times, and they even crossed over in a comic, but I never thought of the Crow as just the Joker. Felt like the Snyder Cut Joker. No, Eric Draven is someone who is mad at the injustice. The Joker is just mad. Eric Draven has a conscience. The Joker? Not so much.
Final Thoughts: A Crow for a New Generation?
Bottom line is, in the end, The Crow (2024) is a Crow movie for an audience who had never seen The Crow. So, if you’ve never seen The Crow—in fact, if you’ve never heard of The Crow—this might be a good place to start for you. It’s got some good-looking cinematography, the score feels like it fits, the blood is back. It’s not gory enough to go full-blown, but there’s blood there. It’s clearly trying to appeal to the Wednesday Addams crowd. So, if you’re here for that, this is here for you. But if you love the original Crow movie and you love the graphic novel, there’s just better Crow entertainment out there. In fact, there’s a YouTube channel called Camera Viscera. That guy talks about the Crow franchise. That was a blast to watch. I had fun watching that video series, more fun than watching this movie.
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People also ask abut The Crow 2024 Movie Review
Is The Crow remake good?
It was no real surprise that a tortured update of 1994’s cursed goth revenge thriller The Crow would be a misfire – it’s been in development since 2008 with multiple directors and actors attached ever since – but it’s genuinely startling just how utterly wretched the finished product is and how unfit it is for a wide
Why is The Crow 2024 rated R?
MPAA. Rated R for strong bloody violence, gore, language, sexuality/nudity, and drug use.
Is there an after credits scene in The Crow 2024?
We can confirm that NO, there is no post-credits scene during the movie The Crow, so feel free to leave the theater right when the movie ends without having to worry about missing anything.
Is The Crow 2024 a remake?
‘The Crow’ Is Not A Sequel Or A Remake. Sanders’ R-rated The Crow is not a sequel or a remake. Although love, loss, sacrifice, redemption, and revenge remain key themes, the director wanted the evolution of Eric to The Crow to be fresh but rooted in the graphic novel.
Is The Crow a revenge movie?
It stars Brandon Lee in his final film role, as Eric Draven, a rock musician who is resurrected from the dead to seek vengeance against the gang who murdered him and his fiancée.
