The Crow (2024)
"The Crow" never needed to be remade. Everyone on Earth knew that except the people involved in this movie, apparently. The original isn't even that great of a movie, but it's held with a lot of rightful regard because Brandon Lee (son of Bruce Lee, in case you've been living under a rock for the last 30 years) died making it. It also did some really cool stylistic things in the comic movie genre, which was just a baby at the time of its creation. But now that we've got the fact that this never should have been a remake out of the way, is this the worst movie of the year like so many reviews would have you believe? Absolutely not.
"The Crow" is an absolutely fine movie. Good even. Not great, but certainly not bad.
Its take is extremely different from the original, to the point that if they had released this as its own product and not a "Crow" remake, I actually think it would have been successful. And I'm just going to throw this out now that I could see this easily finding a lot of success once it hits streaming.
It starts off a little slow, and has a bit of a bizarre anti-rehab, pro-drug message, but once it gets going its pretty decent. The acting is pretty good across the board, with the exception of the villain. He's OK. But it seems like he's been ripped right out of a CW episode of "The Flash".
The action is the main highlight. They have some really good (obviously "John Wick" inspired) action sequences that look great. There's an opera house sequence that's just great and can stand on its own legs for originality.
Bill Skarsgard continues to be a great lead, and they make full use of him here. So no surprises there. FKA Twigs whose a British singer (with the worst stage name imaginable?) in the female lead role. I know absolutely nothing about her prior to this film, but she does a totally competent acting job. Very often, crossover stars suck. If you had just told me she was another actress, I never would have questioned it. She's fine in this role.
One major highlight is the cinematography. The movie has a ton of absolutely brilliant shots and beautiful scenery (filmed on location in Germany). The way it's filmed really shows that there was care put into this. It wasn't meant to be just a shameless reboot like so many others. They tried to make a good film.
It really does make me sad that this was a "Crow" reboot, because it didn't have to be, and it could have stood on its own merits just fine had it been called anything else.
7/10
