The Crow

This review may contain spoilers!

 

The Crow follows Eric, a young delinquent in a juvenile rehab who meets Shelly, a young woman he comes to fall in love with. These two have an incredible bond that is devastated when Shelly's dark past catches up to them. When the two young lovers are violently killed by hitmen, Eric makes a supernatural deal to return and seek justice.

 

This film is a bit of a rare breed, you truly don't get a lot of gothic blockbusters these days. I remember growing up and seeing blockbusters in the 2000s that went in on this sort of aesthetic and tone all the time. This film really carves out an aesthetic for itself that is very distinctive, right through from setting to costume design and the colour tone of the whole piece. I was also intrigued by the supernatural purgatory realm, it provided some mystery to the film as a whole.

 

The score for the feature is very grim, it has a haunting quality that rises and builds through the darker or more visceral scenes. However, the soundtrack might be the greatest strength of The Crow; there are some really emotive songs that give that tone of dark romance and shadowy avenger stalking the night. The music of the film revels in being a bit sombre and shadowy.

 

Danny Huston, who played Vincent Roeg, is quite good at hamming it up as the antagonist in these B action movies; Huston wielding power over characters his role is about to control was my favourite aspect of the performance from him.

 

However, the best performance came from Sami Bouajila, who played Kronos. From what I had seen in the trailers, I felt this kind of mystical guide figure would be a bit of a stereotypical figure, but I truly felt Bouajila broke past this. The way the role is written is nothing new, but I loved the steady indifference of the role. This is a character who doesn't really push Eric to succeed, he sits in pensive judgement. The way he delivers dialogue leaves you guessing too, you don't really know where he aligns or even if he is an innately moral figure. The scene in which he rages at Skarsgård for showing doubt and turning the tide of the scene into a moment in which he claims Eric's soul was the most thrilling moment in the feature.

 

The Crow doesn't start out strongly, in fact, the first act is probably a massive part of what kills the film for me. The nature of it boils down to an awkward young couple romance that goes on and on and on. I like a good romance storyline, but this was a sequence in which the characters stroked self-harm scars, made drawings they didn't want the other to see and spoke some of the worst romantic dialogue I have heard in a while. The dialogue throughout this film really needed to be looked at a little harder, the way the couple speaks like they are 13-year-olds who have discovered love for the first time is a hard watch. Our lead protagonists are built on a very shallow love connection to one another and because that is hard to buy into the rest of the film struggles to work. I found the antagonist a pretty odd figure in it all, he's seen eating souls, and we kinda get he's rich, but ultimately he's in the wings waiting for the final showdown most of the time. The whole film is quite rinse and repeat, Eric gets beaten up and heals from a fatal wound only to do it all again. The fight sequences and action beats weren't especially noteworthy, which is really the last thing the film had going for it. Watching Eric wade through goons until he finally got to Roeg isn't a particularly engaging plot at the best of times. The ultimate final confrontation is over pretty fast and quite underwhelming, leaving the film to spin out on a rapid montage closing that hurriedly ties up loose ends.

 

This film looks boring to watch, the shots are almost constant wides that show off a lot of blank space and bad green screen. I found some of the close up shots a little tough to watch, they were really pushing an overly romantic tone that was struggling to take root. The special effects in this are terrible, I did not much enjoy the constant obligatory flying crow in every transition shot.

 

Bill Skarsgård, who played Eric, might have found his worst role in years; the way Skarsgård opts to shift the role from awkward loner loverboy to grim action hero feels like a hard push. FKA twigs, who played Shelly, is a performer I hope not to have to watch in anything again soon; her delivery of dialogue was very exaggerated and over the top. Josette Simon, who played Sophia, really does not feel like much of a maternal role; this is a character that bounces through extremes of emotion in her performance in a way that doesn't work. Laura Birn, who played Marion, is awkwardly wedged into this as an antagonist for us to get through before we reach Huston; Birn's role rarely gets a moment to really stand apart or stand out. Jordan Bolger, who played Chance, has no reason for being in this film as much as he is; Bolger's role has a scene in which he gives Eric a gun and another where he dies and both might be the most awkward scenes in the feature. Dukagjin Podrimaj, who played Detective Milch, is really just here to be a glorified henchman figure; Podrimaj is inserted with some intrigue and then just collapses into a simple stunt scene.

I hope whoever wrote this film strongly considers never writing dialogue again. I would give The Crow a 4.5/10.