With great apprehension we went into the remake of The Crow to see how this new adaptation handles the source material.

*Note: This review contains minor spoilers for The Crow

At the beginning of this review I would like to say that I am a big fan of The Crow with Brandon Lee in the lead role. Personally, I was against anyone making a remake The Crowbecause I think that some stories should not be revisited. However, when I saw the cast and trailers for this new version of The CrowI was willing to give it a chance. After all, 30 years have passed, maybe this adaptation could bring something new to the table.

I have to give the filmmakers credit for one thing: They did Trying to bring something new to the table. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work.

As you might expect from an adaptation of The Crowthe story tells the unfortunate love story of Eric Draven and his girlfriend Shelley. When both are brutally murdered, Eric is brought back by a crow to right this great injustice. In my opinion, that is where the film’s similarities with the source material end.

The Crow

Led by: Rupert Sanders

Written by: Zach Baylin, William Schneider

Related to: The Crow by James O’Barr

With: Bill Skarsgard, FKA Twigs, Danny Huston

Release date: 23 August 2024

What really hinders The Crow is that the story takes far too long to get going. The whole film suffers from pacing issues, especially in the first act. I can understand the desire to properly flesh out Eric and Shelley’s relationship before pulling the metaphorical trigger on the plot, but this wasn’t the right way to go.

And even when Eric is brought back to take revenge, the story remains Despite it doesn’t get going. It’s a constant back and forth of “start and stop” until the last act of the film. The last act of the film partly saved the film for me because I finally felt like I was watching the film that we were promised in the trailers. The action in the opera house is wonderfully bloody, but we should have seen that throughout the whole film and not just at the end.

Then there’s the film’s antagonist. I think the filmmakers made a mistake by creating a new villain for this story. One of the reasons the original film was so successful was because it followed the characters from the comic book. In this film, the only recognizable characters are Eric, Shelley, and of course the Crow. With all of these changes, not to mention a potentially interesting villain that we ultimately learn very little about, this feels very different from a “Crow” film until near the end. If several scenes from the final act had appeared in the second act instead (after Eric is brought back), this would have been a much better film.

The Crow does some things right. One of its best features is the film’s visual aesthetic. The city is dark, rainy, and there is a general feeling of grime, which is fitting considering that this is the world of The Crow. I particularly like the “in-between realm” that Eric ends up in after his death. This is an aspect that wasn’t really explored in the original film, and it felt like an extension of the Crow mythos that didn’t feel forced and worked quite well.

As a musicologist, I also really liked how the film uses music throughout. In particular, the aforementioned sequence in the opera house is by far the best part of the film. Watching Eric fight his way through a series of enemies to the sounds of Meyerbeer’s opera, Robert the Devil is a sight to behold and I really wish the rest of the film lived up to the standards of this scene.

Ultimately, The Crow is chock full of potential. The star power is there, the acting chops are certainly there, but almost none of it is used properly. This could have been a decent update of The Crow story, but will probably be remembered as the remake that never came to market. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the film should be hated and avoided, because it isn’t all bad. However, it never reaches its full potential and will likely leave the viewer disappointed.