Lionsgate has been careful not to label the latest incarnation of The Crow as a remake or a reboot, though by reviving a dormant film franchise it qualifies as a second installment. It’s not really a remake, even if the screenplay takes more liberties with the source material of J. O’Barr’s original comics this time around than it did in his 1994 film adaptation. This film is seared into the collective consciousness in large part because Brandon Lee died in an accident while filming it. His career achievement has become a monument that would have been poetically tragic even without the real-life tragedy.
Comparisons driven by emotional biases are rarely more consistent, so it’s understandable that the studio was hoping to ward them off as much as possible. It was already expected to be a tough sell for a project that had been in the making for so long and had gone through so many directors, writers, and stars over the past decade before reaching this final product, with some devoted fans and early reviewers sharpening their knives for the kill. But if you can get the previous “Crows” out of your head, Rupert Sanders’ “Snow White and the Huntsman” largely works on its own terms — as a dreamy, bloody, yet strange and engaging fantasy thriller.
This is a slower-paced movie than most popcorn-based entertainment these days, and it’s less superhero, folk-goth, or martial arts-themed than viewers might expect from previous films. This stylish, different story of revenge and love isn’t a hit. But it’s also not an unwatchable dud.
O'Barr created the comic book series (which began publishing in 1989) to express grief and anger after his fiancée was killed in a crash with a drunk driver. In both the graphic novel and the successful film by Alex Proyas, the villains are urban underclass criminals, cartoonish people on a par with Dick Tracy and the Death Wish sequel. Here, however, Zach Baylin and William Schneider's screenplay makes the villains rich, crooks so twisted they never face consequences for their crimes, not unlike the opening of Blink Twice at the same time.
In an unnamed town, Shelley (British pop star FKA Twigs) is an up-and-coming singer who is unwisely drawn into the scene bankrolled by mysterious business mogul Vincent Roeg (Danny Huston), who is always on the lookout for new talent. At his parties, it seems like good people are forced to do bad things. When her friends Zadie (Isabella Wie) and Dom (Sebastian Orozco) record evidence of such acts, they are quickly discovered, putting everyone in danger. Roeg is not to be trifled with—he has literally sold his soul to the devil, winning longevity and a luxurious lifestyle in exchange for sending the souls of corrupt “innocents” to where he knows where. “Go to hell so I don’t have to,” he tells a hapless Zadie.
After escaping from the gangsters (played primarily by Laura Byrne, David Balls, and Karel Dupre), Shelley manages to get her arrested, and is sent to a fictional rehab center. There, she meets Eric (Bill Skarsgård), a skinny, troubled loner whom she decides she loves—and why not? With his long hair, numerous tattoos, and gentle, sarcastic air, Eric is like a shirtless Pete Davidson with a world-class personal trainer. Both of these outcasts seem like nice, charming, party-loving types, the kind whose excess of fancy clothes and pillows can’t be explained by any clear income or backstory. Their buoyant relationship accelerates once it becomes clear that the rehab center isn’t safe from Rog and his associates, either.
The two escape, and their chemistry builds over a fairly long montage of falling in love—this “The Crow” takes a long time to get to the revenge part, unlike previous installments of the franchise that reserved happy moments for flashbacks. But evil finally catches up with the couple, and they are killed. Eric then wakes up in an artificial world where an entity called Kronos (Sami Bouajila) informs him that he is dead… with a warning.
Some souls are said to be guided to the afterlife by a raven. Others, burdened with unfinished business, find their bird to fly them to the realm of the dead. As long as he’s protected by the purity of his grieving love, Eric can recover (however painfully) from whatever punishment Rogue’s enforcers inflict on him. Eric spends the second half of the film slogging his way up that chain of command, culminating in a complex one-man showdown with a private army, punctuated by an opera performance. (This opera house must be incredibly soundproof, since patrons are unaware of the constant gunfire just outside the auditorium.) The sequence is reminiscent of the climactic ballets of Coppola’s Cotton Club and The Godfather Part III , and it achieves a certain conscious bravado.
It’s a good set, and there’s a decent send-off afterward for Rog, whose name is surely an inside joke for cinephiles. Elsewhere, Sanders’s The Raven may lack urgency, but it doesn’t seem to aim for that. It also lacks any real emotional depth, despite Eric’s newfound conceit that he can somehow bring Shelley back from the underworld, like Orpheus and Eurydice. Instead, the film has a kind of disorienting, floaty quality that only feels slack at times.
The grim, comic book-esque brutality and ornate claustrophobia of the first film give way to a more cheerful, stylish look conjured up by director of photography Steve Annis through wide-screen compositions, carefully chosen locations in Prague and Germany, production design by Robin Brown (who cites Tarkovsky’s “Stalker” as an inspiration), and playful costumes by Kurt and Bart. The special effects are restrained, save for the raven that fills the space.
While Proyas’s vision of the grunge era was meant to be bad as hell, the tone and mood here are quite different and somewhat heightened. Even when the violence is “hardcore,” there’s not much sense of sexual pleasure. It’s satisfying enough, but it has a somewhat detached effect—not unlike the soundtrack choices, which lean towards the slightly off-kilter 80s tracks of Joy Division, Gary Numan, and the like, rather than Brandon Lee doing full-on acrobatics. The performances are effective in ways that aren’t overly dramatic given the weak character writing, and avoid excessive broad strokes.
There probably won’t be much demand for more of this sort, or even for Skarsgård to reprise the role. Still, his and Sanders’ take on the man-eyeliner—a signature hero look that doesn’t really show up until much later—is at the very least the best “Crow” movie to come out since that other one. Sure, the sequels between them were terrible. But the 2024 “reimagining” has enough character and skill to satisfy… at least if you’re not glued to the rearview mirror.
