{"id":44924,"date":"2024-08-23T04:04:45","date_gmt":"2024-08-23T08:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=44924"},"modified":"2024-08-23T21:57:23","modified_gmt":"2024-08-24T01:57:23","slug":"the-crow-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2024\/08\/23\/the-crow-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"The Crow (2024)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019ve heard of this certain technique Hollywood usually uses as a means of pulling a fast sequel; it\u2019s by taking a script with a similar concept to an already established IP and turning it in to a sequel. \u201cThe Crow\u201d feels a lot like that. It feels like a simultaneous cash grab, exploitation of the art of James O\u2019Barr, and downright lazy attempt to maintain the license for \u201cThe Crow.\u201d At thirty minutes in, I wondered if at any point anyone on this movie were even trying. At all. This is a non-move. It\u2019s a movie without a presence, or any kind of a soul, or any kind of self awareness. \u201cThe Crow\u2019s\u201d only purpose is to gentrify what should have and could have been a touching, eerie, and heartbreaking movie.<\/p>\n

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It not only completely misses the point of James O\u2019Barr\u2019s original graphic novel, but it dodges the point at every second. It almost seems embarrassed with its own premise and is hellbent on delivering a goulash of nu metal, rock pop garbage. 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. What still strikes a chord about \u201cThe Crow\u201d that many forget is that James O\u2019Barr\u2019s original narrative was about the senselessness of violence.<\/p>\n

The way that violence can creep up and wipe people off of the face of the Earth. It\u2019s also about how our souls can be consumed by a thirst to give some semblance of coherence to a world that\u2019s teeming with pointless cruelty. With 2024\u2019s \u201cThe Crow,\u201d a reboot that\u2019s been in development hell since the late 1990\u2019s, Rupert Sanders completely ignores all of the pop beats and the beating pulse of the source material in exchange of a void of nothing. I want to call \u201cThe Crow\u201d stupid, but it\u2019s too straight faced to be laughed at, and too lazy even poke fun at. Sanders and Lionsgate obviously just watched \u201cJohn Wick\u201d for the thirtieth time and said \u201cfuck it.\u201d What if John Wick, but he\u2019s now some whiny undead guy? For all intents and purposes Bill Skarsgard is great and able to act through his Die Antwoord raver get up, but he really comes to life when he\u2019s donning the Crow make up.<\/p>\n

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Ironically Skarsgard looks like a deranged mime when actually in his face paint, but the director opts out of that allusion. Everything about crows and face paint mysticism takes a shocking back seat, with only passing hints at the crow bringing Eric Draven back. Everything important about the story from the horror elements, Halloween motif, grueling murders, and subtle social commentary is completely side stepped. All the while director Sanders is much more fascinated with music video flourishes, stock aristocratic super villains, and so much of a movie built to taps in to a specific algorithm rather than reach a fan base at any point.<\/p>\n

Sanders can argue he\u2019s doing his own version of \u201cThe Crow\u201d but there\u2019s no accounting for the lack of style, the absolutely lackluster storyline, as well as the utterly hideous performance by FKA Twigs as Shelley. Webster is a crucial role in this series, and Twigs does nothing with it, offering a wooden, often ridiculous turn. She\u2019s barely able to keep up with Skarsgard. \u201cThe Crow\u201d is an infuriating movie. Lionsgate still has no idea what to do with it; it\u2019s a story that would speak waves, especially in today\u2019s social climate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve heard of this certain technique Hollywood usually uses as a means of pulling a fast sequel; it\u2019s by taking a script with a similar concept to an already established IP and turning it in to a sequel. \u201cThe Crow\u201d feels a lot like that. It feels like a simultaneous cash grab, exploitation of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[58,64,240,391,840,1008,1087],"class_list":["post-44924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-action","tag-adaptation","tag-crime","tag-gangster","tag-revenge","tag-supernatural","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44924"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44930,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44924\/revisions\/44930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}