Review of The Crow Remake – Unfathomably Awful Goth Reboot

There are different types of bad movies. Some find an unintended audience after their release, becoming sources of amusement, while others are simply too dull to remember. But the most challenging ones are those made with such staggering incompetence that they barely seem to exist at all. Films like The Snowman, which was technically unfinished yet still released, fall into this latter category, wavering between being bad and utterly unwatchable.

It was no real surprise that a tortured update of 1994’s cursed goth revenge thriller The Crow would be a misfire. The project has been in development since 2008, with multiple directors and actors attached over the years. However, the finished product is genuinely startling in its wretchedness and seems unfit for a wide release. Filmed two years ago and then dumped onto a late summer weekend, The Crow 2.0 is a head-in-hands disaster. It is incoherently plotted and sloppily made, destined to join the ranks of the worst and most pointless remakes ever.

We never really needed a redo of The Crow in the first place. The original was simple and solidly enjoyable, lifted by Alex Proyas’s hyper-stylized direction and the presence of the tragic Brandon Lee. This remake offered a pre-trodden path that could have led to something far less egregious, with a satisfying, tightly plotted revenge thriller formula readily available. Yet, writers William Schneider and Zach Baylin presumed to know better. Instead of delivering an easy retread, they ventured in a different, dreadful direction.

What remains is the character of Eric Draven, portrayed here by Bill Skarsgård, known for his roles in It and Barbarian. However, he’s stripped of any identifying characteristics, shown as dark and brooding merely because he does drugs and has tattoos. He meets Shelly, played by singer FKA twigs, in a co-ed rehab facility. They bond over drugs and tattoos and then escape to the city, where they fall deeper in love through a power of montage. Yet Shelly is targeted by a Big Bad, played by Danny Huston, who has made a devilish deal requiring him to force innocent people to commit terrible acts. Both Shelly and Eric are eventually killed, only for Eric to return as an avenging angel.

The film hinges on the grand melodramatic sweep of an all-consuming emo romance. However, it’s forcefully imposed on the audience without giving us any reason to believe in it. There’s no pull, no urge, no passion, just scenes of two lifeless actors posing as if for a lower-tier perfume ad. Skarsgård performs adequately in the film’s limited action scenes, being physically convincing and committed. But his one-note skulking isn’t enough to fill the gaps elsewhere. Twigs is flat, offering absolutely nothing when she needs to convince us why her death would trigger such a violent reckoning.

The decision to tweak the original setup—where a couple protesting forced evictions are targeted by a local crime lord—and remove any realism, edging it into a goofy monster-of-the-week fantasy, is a bizarre misstep. Change for the sake of change results in a less powerful and more anonymous update, transforming the film from heightened crime noir into a bad CW pilot. The original film’s red-skied, rain-strewn graphic novel metropolis was clearly drawn and immersive. In contrast, this world is confusing and hard to place, with no clear sense of location or system.

Director Rupert Sanders, who has had a questionable track record with Snow White and the Huntsman and Ghost in the Shell, referred to the production as a “struggle.” This struggle is evident in every strained frame. One can sense the hellish late nights in the editing suite and imagine the fiery disagreements in the boardroom. It was a miserable scramble to salvage something from nothing. They shouldn’t have bothered.

Source: Larry Horricks/AP