As much as it pains me to say this, The Crow can be remade. The 1994 adaptation, no matter how perfect or beloved, is just that — an adaptation. And while the original comic writer, the original director, and stars of the 1994 The Crow, as well as it’s multitude of fans, have come forward with criticism about this new movie, the truth is we should allow others the space to create these adaptations.
But man oh man, is The Crow 2024 a flop. And critics agree.
The new adaptation is not a revenge story, because director Rupert Sanders think those are “bad” apparently, but is about Eric and Shelley falling in love. Shelley and Eric are eventually murdered, and we get about 1/3 of the movie where Eric is The Crow getting revenge — sort of. Actually, he gets the chance to give Shelley new life if he avenges her death, but he doesn’t get to do that because he doubts her innocence, so he loses Shelley forever. He then frees the possessed woman from Not Top Dollar (Danny Huston) who is a crime lord with demonic powers…have I lost you yet? Granted, I saw this movie on Nyquil because I’m sick, so I was piecing together what I could remember and now am reading the Wikipedia plot to make sure I didn’t miss anything, and yet I’m still confused.
The characters in this suck. Shelley and Eric eat up so much screen time but their characters are so dripping with emo fanfiction cliches I can barely stomach them. Also they met in a youth center but am I expected to believe Bill Skarsgard is not almost 40 years old?
I really do love the cheese of the original film, with the gothic horror turned all the way up and the brilliant use of corny humor to play against it. It creates a real comic feeling, one that would be difficult for anyone to recreate. I have written love letters to the 1994 The Crow before, and in a recent rewatch I fell even more in love with the atmosphere and the characters (even the bad guys). Yet while watching the new one, I couldn’t get invested. It simply felt like another shitty sequel that didn’t tonally know what it wanted to be. The leads have massive appeal to teen audiences, but the hard R will stop them from attracting that PG-13 crowd. Also the villain is…bad. Huston may have been a good choice, but he has limited room to do anything. Also he’s no Michael Wincott as Top Dollar, but who is? It’s like saying Skarsgard is no Brandon Lee — an obvious thing to say, but could anyone else BE Lee? Would we want him to try?
The answer is no. But that leads me to another question — if no one wants to outdo the original or really add anything new, why make this at all?
This film cannot justify it’s own existence as it simply doesn’t do anything revolutionary with either the source material or as a remake. Eric and Shelley are idiots, they’re two dumb kids who are on the run from demons but also assume they can hide at home. They have no chemistry or no special romance, they just exist. And then they die. And hearing Sanders comments, that this movie is simply Eric’s “origin story”, it suddenly hits me as to why everything is so flat and bad:
This is not The Crow. This is Eric Draven as The Crow, which was never the point of any adaptation of the source material.
The problem with The Crow 2024 is that from it’s conception to it’s execution, it’s about Eric. The marketing for this film, as well as the way it is set up, is to take audiences on Eric’s journey — when Eric has never been the star of The Crow. Brandon Lee’s original performance as Eric Draven is incredible and notes on what a strong performer he is, but it’s because Lee is working with the story knowing full well that Eric is not the star, Shelley is. From it’s conception in comic form, The Crow has always been about the victim. Is Eric in pain? Yes, but he is simply a vessel for avenging Shelley, who he (and audiences) see as the main victim. Shelley, despite being in a majority of the new film, is never anything but a vessel for Eric’s journey. She exists so Eric can become “The Crow” (which also is a fundamental misunderstanding of the original — Eric isn’t “The Crow”, he is still Eric. He is a vessel for the actual Crow to get revenge). Sanders is a moron who doesn’t understand that Eric is appealing because he exists for victims, he does not exist to be the hero.
The Crow could be anyone, that is the point. The Crow is here to help get revenge for whoever may be hurting or need that vengeance. The Crow isn’t Eric, which Sanders misconstrues in his bullshit adaptation. He wants Eric to be The Crow, and have this cool origin story where he becomes this hero above anyone else — but he’s not above anyone else. Eric isn’t special, his love for Shelley is. He was never supposed to be Batman, he was supposed to love his fiancee so much he came back from the dead to avenge her. Sanders is using The Crow as a vehicle for his own masturbatory gothic fantasy where he has a manic pixie dream girlfriend and he gets to save her because he’s SOOOO special.
This film is not for anyone but Rupert Sanders, as it certainly isn’t for the memory of Brandon, fans of the original, or victims of violence anymore.
If you don’t like the original, more power to you. But I can’t imagine you’ll find anything likable about this.