‘The Crow’: Featherless Remake of Cult Classic Suffers From Tone Deaf Approach

Alci Rengifo

The theme of resurrection is apt for a season where nearly every major release has marked the return of a franchise. “The Crow” is all about coming back from the dead, with a story tailor-made for cinema. It is almost surprising it took this long considering the dominance of comic book-themed content for years now. Then again, what has made this title appealing is its outlier status. In 1994, master stylist Alex Proyas directed “The Crow,” based on the comic book by James O’Barr. The film is forever associated with the tragic death of its star, Brandon Lee, who was killed by a freak mistake involving a prop gun. Yet, it has aged as a visually immersive experience that works like a goth fairy tale. This new “Crow” doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be, acting with the story like someone throwing blobs of paint at the wall to see what sticks.

Director Rupert Sanders is a visual stylist in his own right and the lighting is what has the most confidence in this film. There is still some semblance of a story involving Eric (Bill Skarsgård), a tattooed introvert inside a mental health facility for unclear reasons aside from clearly being a depressive. He meets Shelly (FKA twigs), a fellow patient with an instant, sweet connection. When a group of strangers in suits arrive looking for Shelly, she and Eric escape, heading out to the city. The big threat comes from Vincent Roeg (Danny Huston), a rich man with dark powers, who wants Shelly gone to cover up a mysterious incident. Roeg’s goons eventually catch up with the couple and murder them, dumping their corpses into a river from which Eric emerges. He surfaces in some kind of netherworld and meets Kronos (Sami Bouajila), who explains a cosmology about crows bringing back the souls of unavenged victims. 

Writers Zach Baylin and William Josef Schneider find a curious need to overcomplicate matters. The original “The Crow” thrived on the simplicity of its plot, allowing us to enjoy it as an experience. All you had to know was that Brandon Lee’s Eric was a rock musician whose girlfriend was raped and killed on “Devil’s Night” by thugs belonging to a crime boss. He comes back from the dead thanks to the enigmatic crow and prowls the streets like an angel of death. Flashbacks tell us enough about his relationship and why it matters so much. Proyas’ vision eventually works as a hallucinatory ‘90s tale that feels like Romanticism meets Hot Topic. Sanders lets the first act get taken over by a brisk attempt at setting up Eric and Shelly as some kind of passionate couple, lacking all passion. They stay at her unidentified friend’s luxury apartment, have some tame movie sex and learn apparently nothing concrete about each other before being killed with plastic bags.

Such gaps wouldn’t matter too much if the film was at least clear on the rules of its world. It wants to deliver more exposition than the original films, while explaining nothing. Danny Huston’s evil Vincent whispers into the ears of those who displease him, sapping their souls and leaving them as blank-eyed zombies who kill themselves. Just what Vincent is supposed to be is never given context. At first you wonder if he’s at least going to be explained away as Satan. No luck. There is also no need for Kronos, who inhabits some afterlife that looks like an abandoned industrial plant, since he clarifies nothing as well. Eric curiously never tries to sit the man down to get some concrete answers about how the magic crow works or what any of this says about the nature of the cosmos.  When he returns among the living, friends seem not too surprised and lend him guns when Eric announces he needs a weapon.

As a director, Sanders tends to paint impressive canvases that overtake the script. His 2012 hit, “Snow White and the Huntsman,” featured stunning visuals that made up for the clunky writing. “The Crow” is smaller scale but still features some gritty photography by Steve Annis. His best sequence is a bloodbath at an opera house, where a trench coat-wearing Bill Skarsgård, now in full vengeance mode, slices through rows of boring henchmen. The entire sequence is bloody entertainment, though also tonally off because it plays funnier than you suspect the filmmakers intended. Eric walking onto the stage and tossing two decapitated heads into the audience almost falls flat. Mainly this is due to the fact that since little is explained or given deeper context, we just don’t care. The better visuals in the movie, of Eric walking through rain-soaked streets, hint at a better remake still waiting to come back from the beyond. Even more odd is the images’ disconnect with the soundtrack. It’s a languishing collection of gloomy numbers from Joy Division and even Enya. Sometimes the mood of the song does not quite fit with what’s happening on screen. The album from the ’94 “The Crow” still holds strong as a testament to the era’s sounds. You can instantly go back to the movie in your mind when listening to “Dead Souls” by Nine Inch Nails.

“The Crow” finds itself with elements that should work yet falter under the execution. Bill Skarsgård was a perfect casting choice for the lead. He has the look and hidden ferocity. He can be attractive and eerie. It’s a big task to take on a role defined by Brandon Lee’s performance, to which he brought humor and charm. Vincent Pérez is the second-best take on the character in “The Crow: City of Angels,” the 1996 sequel that still retains a dreamlike allure. Skarsgård is cursed with being convincing yet stuck in a movie being too down to earth. Just compare his anti-climactic resurrection in this movie to Pérez’s Christ-like rise from the depths in “City of Angels.” FKA twigs feels childlike and out of place for what this movie is trying to sell. There’s no angst in her delivery. It is essential when considering the source material. James O’Barr wrote his comic book out of a need to process the tragic death of his own girlfriend. Yes, it is a fantasy, one that requires some heart to tell.

“The Crow” releases Aug. 23 in theaters nationwide.