PLOT: A young man (Bill Skarsgard) returns from the dead to avenge his girlfriend’s murder.
REVIEW: Rupert Sanders’s The Crow is one of the more controversial would-be big-budget blockbusters (they hope) in some time. The rights holders to the property have spent over a decade trying to relaunch James O’Barr’s classic antihero. While there was initially some enthusiasm from fans when IT star Bill Skarsgard was cast in the lead, they didn’t care for the character’s look when it was revealed, and many dismissed the trailer as Crow-Wick and a stain on the memory of the original Brandon Lee classic.
But, here’s the thing – outside of the first movie by Alex Proyas, there’s never been another good Crow movie. In fact, there have been some genuinely abysmal ones, so it’s strange fans have all of a sudden gotten so precious about a property that’s already been done to death. This is the second-best Crow movie ever made, but before that fact has you rushing out to theatres to buy a ticket, keep in mind how bad all the other movies are. This is a decent enough gothic actioner with some interesting choices made in the execution, but it’s also frustratingly uneven and rather poorly paced.
Would it surprise you that Bill Skarsgard’s Eric (you never find out his last name to distance themselves from the ’94 version) only becomes The Crow as we know the character in the last act? Eric and Shelly (FKA Twigs) aren’t even murdered until about forty minutes in, with director Rupert Sanders (Snow White and the Huntsman) trying to flesh out their love story. Alas, their romance isn’t convincing, with them mostly going to raves, doing drugs and having tastefully shot love scenes among billowing curtains.
While Lionsgate’s been hiding this one from critics, it’s a significantly better movie than their recent flop, Borderlands. It helps that Bill Skarsgard, who recently impressed me with his action chops in Boy Kills World, delivers a fresh take on the character. In every other Crow movie, the lead was doing a riff on Brandon Lee’s performance in the original, but Skarsgard doesn’t do that. The late American rapper, Lil’ Peep, was a heavy influence here, at least as far as the character’s styling went. A cynical drug addict we first meet in rehab, Eric is less of a romantic hero than Draven. When revived, he doesn’t immediately become a badass, as he spends much of the running time frightened and bewildered by his new powers.
The premise is also different from the ’94 movie (and graphic novel) in that Shelly’s soul is dammed because her mother sold her for fame and fortune to Danny Huston’s Vincent Roeg. His character maintains his immortality by collecting and corrupting innocent souls he can send to hell, with Shelly one such victim. In her part, FKA Twigs does a good job selling the tortured, vulnerable aspect, although, after the first act, she becomes something of a non-entity as far as the rest of the movie goes. This is Skarsgard’s show, with him nailing the action beats once he finally becomes The Crow. One thing is for sure: the R-rating was not an afterthought, with some genuinely grand guignol horror moments baked in, even if the blood is a little too CGI-heavy for my liking.
As the baddie, Roeg, Huston channels his father, John Huston’s memorably lecherous performance in Chinatown, and always brings a little gravitas to the proceedings. Sanders also gives the film a solid score by All Quiet on the Western Front’s Volker Bertelmann, along with goth soundtrack choices ranging from Joy Division to Gary Numan to Enya.
However, the movie also has a shockingly inept sense of pacing at times, feeling like significant chunks of the film were removed. Some characters come and go, such as Eric’s gun-dealing buddy, who feel like they were meant to be significant characters but are little more than walk-ons. The detective work Eric puts in while tracking down Roeg is shockingly inane, with him always lucking into finding a cell phone on whomever he killed last, pointing to another address where even more bad guys are hiding.
Yet, the movie still gets a pass from me, as there are some legitimately great set pieces. Towards the end, there’s a major action sequence set at an Opera that worked pretty well, and the denouement hits a pleasingly bittersweet if perhaps too convenient, note. It’s also shot in a distinctly different way from the original, with DP Steve Annis avoiding the temptation to copy the original movie’s famed film noir-style visuals. So, is the version of The Crow (don’t call it a remake!) a hidden gem in the dog days of summer? I wouldn’t go that far, but in terms of a goth-styled action movie, you could do a heck of a lot worse.