THE CROW – “Darkly operatic in moments, tediously sluggish in others”

thecrow

RATING

DIRECTOR

Directed by: Rupert Sanders (Ghost in the Shell – 2017)

MAIN CAST

Bill Skarsgård as Eric / The Crow
FKA Twigs as Shelly
Danny Huston as Vincent Roeg
Josette Simon as Sophia
Laura Birn as Marian
Sami Bouajila as Kronos
Isabella Wei as Zadie
Jordan Bolger as Chance

SYNOPSIS

It is a reboot of The Crow film series and is an adaptation of the 1989 comic book series of the same name by James O'Barr.

Soulmates Eric Draven and Shelly Webster are brutally murdered when the demons of her dark past catch up with them. Given the chance to save his true love by sacrificing himself, Draven returns to seek bloody revenge against the killers, traversing the worlds of the living and the dead to put the wrong things right.

REVIEW SUMMARY

Darkly operatic in moments, tediously sluggish in others, Rupert Sanders’ The Crow might not come close to the brilliance of the Brandon Lee-starring 1994 offering, but it’s not a complete waste. You see, the movie has its moments of violent grandeur, but they are unfortunately few and far between. The good news is that Bill Skarsgård wholly commits in the titular role, not only giving in to the requisite “tormented” performance, but adding plenty of bad ass brooding worthy of the comic book hero. Plus, the Swedish actor is sporting an impressively chiselled body full of tattoos and scars alike. All that to say that he’s a good fit for this ultra-gothic character, and in such, is easy to root for. That, of course, is half the battle – the other half is nailing the love story aspect (the reason for the violent spree of vengeance). I’d say they get pretty darn close, but there’s something missing. The chemistry with FKA Twigs is there, but the story’s drawn-out setup takes a lot of the “steam” away. Less could (and should) have been more here. The movie also has a villain problem, in that our “final boss” is not that interesting. In fact, he’s quite silly. I mean, his powers are that he can make people do bad things by whispering in their ear. Ok, so there’s a bit more to it, but it’s fairly lame any way you look at it. The biggest issue The Crow faces, however, is it’s monotonous pacing. Yes, it’s supposed to be a gloomy and moody viewing experience by design, but it shouldn’t be putting its audience to sleep. I won’t go as far as saying it’s dull, but it gets pretty close. Luckily, there’s an intriguing production design on display. It’s all very grimy and kinda ugly, but it works for this story and character. So yes, there is some great things at play here, you’ll just have to dredge through the muck to find them.

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