A rare movie review, because for some reason I actually had a lot to say about this movie. The original is one of the most atmospheric movies of the 90's, with a powerful performance by Brandon Lee (his last, mind you, which makes the movie even more impactful). It wasn't something that needed to be remade to begin with, and they bungled this one on every level to boot.
Both this movie and the 1994 movie are based on a 1989 graphic novel by James O'Barr that might be one of the greatest works of all time in the graphic novel field, or at least one of the most personal. He wrote it after his long-time girlfriend was killed by a drunk driver, as a way to process his grief. It's more than a basic revenge story and captures the isolation and alienation that the author himself was going through at the time due to his inability to have done anything about it.
Of course, while the author couldn't do anything to avenge his loss in the real world, his character could. It must have been something for him to see his story come to life five years later in the movie. Anyway, this movie has very little to do with any of this, and drops the ball right out of the gate by changing the story to be about his quest to revive the girlfriend rather than simply avenge her and cope with the loss - aka the things people have to do in reality which is why the original story resonates so much. Nope, let's go ahead and sanitize that and make it a story about reviving people. Disney's Doug, sometimes dead is bettah, etc etc.
Not sure if this movie is supposed to take place in Detroit like the original, but it's way too shiny and glitzy. It seems more like it's glamorizing the city rather than portraying the grime and decay like the original did so well.
Here's the main character of the movie, Shelly, played by Fka Twigs-
Editor's Note: Is that actually her name? ...Alrighty.
She's being pursued by some mafioso bad guys because she has an incriminating video of them, or something.
Also, yes, that wasn't a typo, she's the real main character of the movie, not Eric Draven (you know, The Crow). ...well, unpopular take here: Shelly is kinda hot and the only thing I like about this movie.
She escapes the mafioso by physically running into some cops which causes a bunch of drugs to fall out of her purse which then causes them to arrest her. Not sure if that was supposed to be a deft manuever she pulled on purpose to escape, or if it happened accidentally because she was nervous, as the movie isn't clear. Also couldn't she just walk up to the cops and ask for help rather than do all of this?
Oh okay. Wait, who are you and how did you get in here?
Eric reawakens in the real world, stumbling around and wondering what happened. No crow around to wake him up (they forgot about the crow), just him popping back into the world of the living. In the 1994 movie this was another powerful scene, with him having jolting flashbacks to what a wonderful person Shelly was every time he so much as touches anything in the room that reminds him of her. None of that here, just him simpering about like the simpering simp he is.
We cut to the John Wick style "shot of the protagonist from behind in the shower with phrases tattooed on his back". Which is not a coincidence at all because the creators of this movie mimic John Wick as much as humanly possible for the entire runtime. They even got the bad guy from John Wick 4 to play the protagonist:
Hard to believe Bill Skarsgard here was also Pennywise in It.
In any case, this is Eric Draven, and he's all mopey all the time with his face tattoos.
LIFE IS PAINNNNN.
He's locked up in some sort of drug rehabilitation facility / minimum security prison situation, where he spends his days moping and drawing pictures in a sketchbook. Mostly moping. Also a bit of brooding.
We're never told why exactly he's here, or what his crimes are, or really anything about him, except that he's messed-up in the head because as a kid he tried to save an injured animal and couldn't. I've been there myself twice and yes, it does stay with you and mess with your head, but it's hard to imagine it consuming this guy's life to the point that he's locked up in a facility. Aside from not knowing why he's here, his moping and brooding is supposed to be AFTER the big event. By making him such a moping broodster from the jump, we can't tell the difference. There's no arc to the character.
Here's the villain of the movie, the mafioso guy. While the villains of the original The Crow were a bunch of violent drug-fueled rapists with a penchant for arson, truly the worst humanity has to offer... this guy is just a random rich guy who made a deal with the devil and is hundreds of years old with super mind-control abilities. So basically just a supervillain. ...cool?
There's a subplot where he's mentoring this young piano savant. Wait a minute, an immortal mentoring a young piano savant? Claudia Jardine, is that you?
Anyway, I don't know what the point of this subplot is because it doesn't go anywhere. I thought maybe he was going to make the young piano savant into some sort of Anti-Crow with her own superpowers or something, because why not, but nope.
Elsewhere, Main Character Shelly has a blonde friend who also saw the incriminating tapes of the bad guy, so he has her kidnapped.
Then he uses his mind control powers to make her off herself. Why didn't they just kill her? So far, we've had absolutely no reason why this guy has to be a supervillain and not just a regular mafioso. In any case, now they have to find Shelly and get rid of her too.
Speaking of, Shelly is now safely ensconced in the drug rehab / prison? where Eric is. This place is WEIRD. Everyone's wearing the same pink outfits with bulky sweaters while they do heavy physical activity and get screamed at like they're in boot camp. Between exercising, they have to repeat self-affirming mantras over and over. It's more like some kind of indoctrination camp than a prison.
Anyway, Shelly and Eric meet in here and sparks instantly fly! ...meaning that she clearly wants him while he mopes and broods and fidgets like a shonen protagonist. She has to make every move and take every initiative because he does NOTHING. Guy shows little interest or incentive to do things in general, and the entire story is moved forward by Shelly basically forcing it to move forward while Eric sits there.
Shelley and Eric mostly have to flirt from afar because there's no coed fraternization allowed in here.
WHOA SHE MADE HIM LAUGH.
Life isn't all paaaaain?
Wish we knew more about this guy and what the hell his deal is. He comes off like a troubled 25-30 year old who has never had a girlfriend or even associated with a girl before and has some sort of cripping neurosis about interacting with anybody. Just an explanation as to what the reason for all of this is would help, and no, his inability to save the horse doesn't do it. If he isn't supposed to come off as any of this, well...
Shelly visits his room and looks at his drawings, finding one that is clearly of her...naked. Despite the copious amounts of sex, this is the only time we actually see her breasts in this movie, because in a 2024 Lionsgate movie, any kind of nudity of the woman is verboten!
That's right, you've been found out, ya boob-drawing scoundrel!
Anyway long story short, the mafioso's goons arrive at the Uso Penitentiary, and Shelly tells Eric they have to get out of there. So they climb out a window in the laundry room and book it into the woods. Yes, they just escaped from the place that easily. Eric has no idea why she's fleeing these people, so he just sorta follows along like the lapdog he is while she keeps all of the mafioso stuff from him like the terrible person she is.
Then they hitch-hike in the back of a pickup truck after a bunch of random guys pick them up in the woods! Prison escape seems like a fantastic adventure so far! You know, this would have likely been a much better movie (and basically loyal to the source novel) if the random guys in the pickup truck had been the ones to kill them in the woods here. If I was watching this blind I might have guessed that was where it was going.
They bond a bit more here, as she uses his shoulder as a pillow while he confusedly acts bewildered that a girl is paying any attention to him.
They end up at this lavish apartment that isn't hers but she has access to it for some reason. What do these two even DO, anyway? Like what are their jobs?
He may be weird and covered in more tattoos than a Soundcloud rapper, but he's freakishly tall, and that's good enough for Shelly. Women love guys they can't reach without standing on a pile of books! Manute Bol probably got tons of poon back in the day.
This leads to the best part of the movie, an incredibly long lovin' scene. For like 20 minutes it basically just shows cuts of the next day or two of their lives as they lay about, do drugs, have sex, find something to do between having sex, hang out in this lavish apartment, have sex, do drugs, and have sex. No boobs though. FEMALE NUDITY VERBOTEN!
Shelly puffs smoke into the air!
Next she gets some hard drugs out of storage and they drop some molly so they can bang more. It's so not-believable that she hasn't taken her bra off during all of this banging.
Lionsgate: "VERBOTEN!"
Our hero makes out with her belly button since everything else is covered up. It's good work if you can get it.
Time for this post to get flagged for a content warning, haven't had that happen in a while and it's due up.
We get the single best shot of the entire movie, Shelly doing a "runway walk" towards a mirror and looking like an absolute goddess while doing it.
Yeah, that shot is the best thing in this movie, so much so that it made it into the trailer.
Not sure if they've gotten around to telling each other their last names yet in this hedonistic weekend bang-fest. And they say romance is dead!
Now they fool around on the roof! Bear in mind that these two escaped from the authorities and are technically fugitives right now, have no apparent jobs or money, no skills, no nothing... and here they are living high on the hog, without a care in the world, with their posh penthouse and rooftop balcony and apparently infinite champagne. This is like somebody's fanfiction.
Shelly: "If I'm ever hard to love... just love me harder"
While most of the dialogue is pretty bad, I actually understand what they're getting at here. They're both broken, difficult people and she is essentially asking him to stand by her despite that. That or she just wants a harder bone-sesh IDK.
Then they play dress-up, meaning she drags him around and dresses him up in various weird emo outfits while he stands around being sad and broken or whatever.
Then they go get matching tattoos, which I assume was 100% completely her idea given how she wears ten pairs of pants in their "relationship". Also would it kill her to not mount the guy while the tattoo artist is literally drawing on his arm a few inches to the right?
Elsewhere, the mafioso receives word of the whereabouts of Shelly, and sends his minions to deal with it.
I'm convinced that the piano savant girl exists only so that we can get these shots of the mafioso listening to her play just to illustrate how cultured and high-class he is.
The relationship of our heroes enters day 3! On deck today, making out in a lake in the rain. This is actually a good scene and it's starting to be somewhat believable that these people are soulmates of some sort. Almost. And then:
Later that evening, Shelly entertains the idea of jumping off a bridge to her death and wonders if he'd follow her if she does that.
...you guys have been together for a couple of days and have mostly just had sex the entire time. Also, are you mental? Don't answer that.
Next, they hit the club, where Shelly gets all sweaty as she grinds and undulates and I'll be in my bunk. Actually this is a great time to turn the movie off because all the good parts have concluded.
As much as I find Shelly attractive, this would be a good time to call these two out.
They suck. They both absolutely suck. They're horrible people. They're self-absorbed, wallow in self-pity, care nothing about bettering their lives, and neither of them is particularly honest. Eric has yet to tell Shelly (or the audience) anything about himself, and Shelly just totally neglected to mention the mafia syndicate out to kill her, which means she's been putting Eric in literal mortal danger the entire time they've been together without even bothering to let him know what's going on.
The whole thing about the Brandon Lee movie was how Eric and Shelly were pillars in their community, fundamentally kind and decent people. They went out of their way to help others and you knew they could be relied on by everyone around them. Real beacons of light in an awful, decrepit, hopeless place. The reason the movie was so tragic was because of their goodness and the way they were the LAST people who deserved the bad things that happened to them. We didn't spend 45 minutes with Eric and Shelly and we didn't need to, we could tell how much they loved each other just from the few brief flashbacks that hit harder due to how brief they were.
Fast forward 30 years: In this movie Eric and Shelly are washout druggies who do nothing besides pursue base desires like drugs and bonin' and probably couldn't care less about the people around them, or at least don't seem to. They actually have more in common with the villains of the first movie than they do with their namesakes. It's sort of like virtue and vice have been completely inverted in this movie and it isn't done in any sort of ironic way.
Legit question, is their behavior what passes as protagonist behavior in 2024? Is this stuff supposed to make them relatable to young people? DOES it make them relatable to young people? "lol they're taking molly! I also take molly! Drugs are awesome!"
Lastly, instead of a loving long-term relationship, we've got a glorified one night stand between two brain-addled people and that's supposed to be a romance that transcends the boundaries of our world and the spirit world. Is that what passes for a loving relationship in 2024? Is this movie just mirroring the tragic state of our current reality, or is it Lionsgate's idea of what the kids are into? Who knows. I'm not sure how much I even care.
Anyway, goons show up at the club and Shelly quickly books it out of there, leading Lapdog Eric as usual as he scurries to keep up with her in the background. Note that she STILL hasn't mentioned to him that they're being PURSUED BY ASSASSINS.
They go back to Eric's apartment, where the goons are waiting to ambush them. Eric and Shelly both get unceremoniously suffocated with bags, and it's... pretty tame and sanitized, really. Nothing compared to the 1994 movie or the book it was based on, where the bad guys shot Eric up and then were implied to have had their way with Shelly repeatedly before shooting her too. We don't actually see most of the latter play out (nor do we need to) but we know what happened to her and it's rough. Here, it's like they don't want to actually bother the viewer or anything so the protagonists just get quickly ganked. Nothing about the scene is memorable or makes you feel anything, and yet it still manages to be unpleasant.
Cut to the spirit world, where Eric and Shelly's spirits are momentarily together (sinking towards Hell apparently) before he gets pulled back upward.
Eric ends up in purgatory, which is the ruins of an old trainyard that'd be an amazing area in a game. Looks like something out of the slums of Midgar (the original version, not the bright and sunny remake). Here in purgatory, a random bearded guy tells Eric that he's in the spirit world and isn't done with the real world yet because he has things to do and sometimes when someone has a violent death they get to stick around and fix it. Thanks, exposition guy!
The 1994 movie didn't need an exposition guy to pop in and "MEGAMAN MEGAMAN" all this info at us. We saw Eric climb out of the ground and just had to use our brains to figure out what was going on based on his powerful reactions to everything. What a strong movie. Well, this one doesn't do any of that and opts instead to treat the audience like idiots. We can't handle having to figure anything out, we can't handle any strong feelings, we can't handle anything horrific happening to the leads. Are we 12?
Exposition Guy explains that basically our hero is immortal until he avenges Shelly and then he can be reunited with her and they'll both be alive again. What a sanitized way to go. In the original movie Shelly was gone, G-o-n-e, and the most he could do was avenge her and maybe feel like it meant anything. Maybe in the afterlife they'd be reunited, who knows.
The 1994 movie really makes you feel, whether you like it or not. This one's going for the happy Hollywood ending. Kinda like how the recent Hollywood remake of Speak No Evil totally missed the entire point of the Dutch version because it was so busy trying not to upset anybody. When art is designed to not evoke any strong feelings (positive or negative) it ceases to be art and just becomes Content that you consume and forget about. Heaven forbid the audience feels anything. Surprised they didn't go Full Superhero Movie and have every remotely emotional line be immediately followed by a joke just so the audience doesn't have to actually process anything tangible.
This movie is an illustration of flame crudely drawn by untalented people. The graphic novel is the fire itself.
This really didn't need to exist. It reminds me a lot of the Fahrenheit 451 remake a few years ago in that it feels like a dumbed-down version of the source material designed to appeal to coddled modern audiences with little life experience. A movie so desperate to not offend anyone that it ended up not really even saying anything. Yeah, that's this movie too.
"SHELLY! SHELLLLLLYYYYY!" he says while huffing away.
No, I'm kidding, he doesn't actually bawl or show any major emotion. He does get a good facefull of clothes though.
He's less invincible than the 1994 version was, and rather than just shrugging off wounds that instantly heal, it seems like he actually gets hurt and has to push things back into place before they'll regenerate correctly.
Now our hero looks at old pictures and mopes about. This is about the halfway point of the movie, which means that this one takes about half of the runtime just to get to where the 1994 movie basically started. That one's a lot more "en media res" while this one decides to just be as verbose as possible building up the setting.
Not much happens in the second half. Seriously, there's almost nothing to talk about.
He walks through the darkened streets!
He interrogates people affiliated with Shelly, or the bad guys, to find out WTF happened!
He visits Shelly's home to look for clues!
He flashbacks to them having sex, as that's literally all they did during their three-day relationship!
"SHELLYYYY! SHELLYYYYYYYYYYY!!"
Crawwwwwling innnnn my skiiiiiiin!
He walks around more, moping in the rain! It's easy to forget that he's technically dead during all of this, because he just sorta walks around everywhere. In the 1994 movie, he kinda seemed to warp from place to place and was more of an ethereal spirit.
SHELLLLYYYYYYYY!
Finally he puts on the face paint (sort of) and becomes The Crow. Except I'm not sure what a crow had to do with any of this. He's got one following him around now, but I don't know why. In the 1994 movie, the crow was there when he revived and watched over him / functioned as his spirit-vision over the city. Here it's just sorta this random bird that meanders in and out of some shots.
THESE WOOOOUNDS THEY WILLLL NOT HEALLLLL
He gets equipped with a short, stubby katana. Not even sure if this qualifies as a wakizashi. One thing's for sure, it's nowhere near as cool as a full-sized katana. Why not go for the full monty?
His next stop is the local opera, where the bad guy and all of his henchmen are enjoying opera, because that's what high-class bad guys do. You know, I'm getting some distinct Highlandery vibes from a lot of elements of this movie. Eh, it's probably nothing.
FEAR IS HOWWWW I ROLLLLLLLLL
THE MUUUUSIC BOARD IS HEAAALED
The classy opera begins! I'm much more interested in seeing this than I am in the rest of the actual movie.
Not sure what this opera is about but it's gotta be more interesting than what I've been watching.
"Rememba, Highlanda! Rememba your home!"
"Rememba Zeist!"
"Yes, I remember! I remember!"
THE GREAT WAR OF ZEIST.
"You're Hitler, you felon! ...HITLER!!"
"MACLOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!"
"Read! My! Lips! No! New! Taxes!"
We return from 1991 and Eric Draven has killed a bunch of henchmen in the lobby. That's just the beginning, as the next ten or so minutes of the movie are dedicated to him murdering tons of goons in incredibly violent ways. It's clear they were emulating John Wick here, but while John Wick is stylish and turns violence into an art form, this scene is brutish and cruel and there's not really anything entertaining about it.
If he collects enough blood on his face, he can turn into Wolfpac Sting!
There's one cool moment where he shoots through his own chest to take out a goon that has him in a chokehold. At this point he's just no-selling everything, where earlier in the movie he seemed to be seriously affected by his injuries until they healed up a minute later.
Eventually, he reaches the opera stage, and walks right out in front of the audience...
...to hold up the severed heads of two of the bad guy's henchpeople! This terrifies all the random people in attendance and they cause a stampede trying to leave. He does this despite some of the henchpeople showing genuine remorse for their actions. Hey, remember when Eric Draven showed mercy on people who had been misled / made bad choices in the 1994 movie? None of that here!
He then mopes about more, before leaving to go to the house of the bad guy. Who I guess left the opera during all the murdering. One of the main goons told him where the bad guy's house is as a bit of repentance and he just sorta beheaded her anyway.
Wonder what happened to that piano savant girl who seemed to be a big deal and then just disappeared? Well, anyway, there was this whole deal where Eric finds out that Shelly once murdered somebody (while under the mind control of the bad guy here) and it was caught on tape. Wait, that's why he had to kill her? The tape didn't even implicate him unless you know he has mind-control powers, Shelly did all the murdering.
This completely nonsensical development is just to inject some 11th hour drama where Eric has to question whether Shelly is really the amazing person he thought she was. I mean, he knew her for a couple days, there's room to be surprised here. Maybe they should have just had them have a real relationship? I know it's old-fashioned but hear me out here!
..........this movie has so many structural problems that it's almost unreal.
The bad guy tries to get him to renounce his love for Shelly, now knowing she's a murderer, but he refuses and decides to fight the guy instead!
There is one interesting wrinkle to this: Since Shelly committed murder (despite being coerced) and she's damned to go to hell now, reviving her is essentially to save her from that fate in particular. Well, at least they're admitting that these people are all going to hell.
They end up getting warped to the purgatory trainyard where they fight it out, and by that I mean Eric just punches him in the face about 500 times trying to kill this fellow immortal. It's brutish and ugly, like the rest of the movie. Eventually the guy gets dragged down into hell by this pond, and that's it for him.
Shelly's spirit now rises out of the abyssal depths...
...and reappears in purgatory so they can be reunited! So, they can go off into the afterlife together (preferably a non-hell one) and all's well that ends well?
No, of course not. Instead Eric gives up his own soul so she can live again, and then it...
...warps back to when they were first killed / found by EMTs, and Shelly comes back to life. Eric stays dead, and now Shelly "can live for both of them". But wait, if we're back in time, that means all the bad guys are alive again and still after her, so she's probably doomed the minute she walks out of here!
Well, nice of him to give up his eternal soul for this woman he barely knows, but none of this makes any sense.
Now we get a bunch of scenes of them that should have been them in the afterlife together but are instead more flashbacks of their couple days together. Turns out they did something besides have sex: They also went for walks and giggled!
He also watches her dance like a gypsy in front of a bonfire. This character is still super-sexy and that's the only thing I enjoyed in this movie.
Meanwhile our hero walks off into the fog of purgatory, where he'll presumably wander around forever by himself.
Uhhhhh...
Well.
The 1994 movie had style and substance and was a trendsetter. This one's got no style, no proper pacing, and no sense. Despite the 1994 movie being a musing on grief, there was also a genuine sense of goodness and light - while this one, despite sanitizing and opting for happy solutions, ends up being way darker and bleaker. There's nobody to root for here, no sense of community, no sense of goodness. Hedonism and base pleasures are put on a pedestal at the cost of morality and just basic likeability, and what passes for a "love story" is an outright joke compared to the past versions of the tale. Most of all this movie is just really really dull and boring. Even in a vacuum, without the 1994 movie to compare it to, most of the overlong runtime is paint-dry boring.
It's a movie made for modern audiences Lionsgate's idea of what modern audiences are, treating us like morons instead of adults that can process anything adequately. It's a movie designed to appeal to "the Tinder generation" as an old CEO in a boardroom perceives it. It's a movie that doesn't know it's bad, so you can't even get a chuckle out of it, and it's just plain hard to watch. Not sure why I had such a fascination with it that I wanted to cover it on here but I guess I had some ranting to do.
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