Quick synopsis: After the love of his that he’s known for a suuuuuuch a long time is murdered in front of him, Eric is given the power of face paint and healing to get his revenge.
I know how this is supposed to go. Reviews for this have been so negative there was concern it would somehow end up with a minus score on rotten tomatoes. The jokes would have been obvious, “This does to Skarsgards career what the original did to Brandon Lee”. About how it was a cynical cash grab, that forgot the “cash” part. Maybe comments about how this is the second review this year which would lead itself to jokes about Sting. Truth is, I won’t be making any of those jokes.
Not because this film is good, far from it, it’s definitely a steaming pile of crap that I wouldn’t recommend to anybody. And certainly not because I feel it deserves compliments for effort and you can tell the filmmakers are trying. The reason it’s hard to rustle up any anger and vitriol towards The Crow is because it’s so unbelievably bland. I haven’t encountered anything so devoid of taste since a Wetherspoons fry-up.
The original Crow movie is iconic, in the 30 years since it was released, the combination of a white face and black trenchcoat has inspired countless school shooters. It’s hard to imagine this version inspiring anything other than complete apathy.
It’s hard to think of anything about this that works. The romance, you know, the entire reason the character is so vengeful in the first place, doesn’t feel real. For some reason, The Crow thinks we need to see their whole relationship, including how it starts. We don’t NEED to see them meeting, in fact, that actually makes it worse because you then realise the “Love of his life” is someone he’s known for a few days. So his reasons for coming back from the dead seem less “I have lost EVERYTHING!” than they should. It’s not helped by the fact they don’t seem to have much chemistry. I don’t get how Skarsgards performance is so meh in this considering he’s basically made a living treading that line between corpse and hot. This is only the second feature film credit for FKA Twigs, and she’s better than that would suggest. Note “better” does not necessarily mean “good”.
The soundtrack is forgettable. I’m assuming that anyway, I can’t actually remember. This would have been the PERFECT time to play a shitload of dark pop. Get some stuff in there that’s both danceable and depressing; some Lana Del Ray, some Ashnikko, some Charli XCX, don’t play fucking Enya.
Nothing about this answers the question “Why was this made?”. Do we need a dark and gritty film which is a remake of a film that’s already dark and gritty? The only notable thing about this movie is that Danny Huston continues to be a solid choice for “threatening mob-like guy”. But even that’s ruined by the inconsistency in his character.
Even the fight scenes aren’t well done. We know Skarsgard can do fight scenes, but you wouldn’t know that if you have only seen this, because of how bland and weirdly neutered the fights are. I’ve never seen scenes so full of blood still manage to come off so sanitised and “safe”.
It’s not the worst film ever. It’s not a complete mess that fails at everything it attempts. What it is, is something much more offensive than that; dull. It doesn’t fail at what it tries because it never tries anything. There is zero effort, zero heart, and consequently, zero reason to watch this film.
Troubled Productions 