The Crow

The Crow
Starring Bill Skarsgard, FKA Twigs, Danny Huston, Josette Simon
Directed by Rupert Sanders

When "The Crow" was announced, there was immediate backlash as anything even closely resembling the 1994 film that resulted in the tragic untimely death of its star Brandon Lee could ever be made, or remade, as some people thought it to be. It already had ill-will upon itself, by a director who couldn't read the room, and a production company that only saw dollar signs even though there were throngs of angry protests about it. The result is a film already dead, but unlike its titular character, had no chance to rise from the depths.

Eric (Bill Skarsgard) is a troubled young man with a terrible upbringing who's staying at a rehabilitation institution where he meets Shelly (FKA Twigs), a woman on the run from her past and also running from Vincent Roeg (Danny Huston), a demonic crime lord who wants to find and kill her. The two have instant chemistry together, and when Roeg tracks her down, they escape and start their lives together. But the past comes back to haunt them and he tracks them down and has them killed, but Eric meets Kronos (Sami Bouajila), a spirit guide who allows him to live again to kill Roeg and his men in order to save Shelly from hell. Imbued with the powers of the underworld, Eric goes on a love-fueled rampage.

Apart from the connections to the Brandon Lee film, "The Crow" is below mid on its own merits. It feels like a film that was shot in the 1990s, in a way I can't really explain, but more like a gut feeling. There's something about the overall movie that feels very outdated, bland, too simple. The cinematography feels old. The acting feels old. The effects feel old. It just all feels old. And unnecessary.

Bill Skarsgard is a great actor who's delivered time and again (most notably "It" and the criminally underrated "Boy Kills World" that also came out this year), but he's only as good as the material he's given, and the script here is so bland and boring it's hard to spice it up. He only knows two emotions in this film: anger and apathy. Even his relationship with Shelly feels apathetic, like both of them were high for most of the film and forgot how to emote any emotions. FKA Twigs is the same, as she breezes through her entire performance with this soft, whispery voice that doesn't ring true. You don't feel a connection between these two, much less a connection that goes beyond death.

Now that I think of it, maybe it has a 1990s feel because Danny Huston is the main villain (even though he peaked in the early 2000s, it still feels like a 1990s performance, if that makes sense). His villain is so nondescript and void of any purpose it's laughable. He's some sort of demon that can speak to peoples' darkest impulses and cause them to kill themselves and others, and he does this...for the lols I guess? 

The effects were subpar, but at least the blood and gore were there, especially when he was fighting his way through the opera house, so...kudos for that I guess. It's hard when there's so much blood and gore that I found myself still bored, but here we are.

The Score: D-