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With: Bill Skarsgård, FKA Twigs, Danny Huston, Josette Simon, Laura Birn, Sami Bouajila, Karel Dobrý, Jordan Bolger, Sebastian Orozco, David Bowles, Isabella Wei
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Written by: Zach Baylin, William Schneider, based on comics created by James O'Barr
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Directed by: Rupert Sanders
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MPAA Rating: R for strong bloody violence, gore, language, sexuality/nudity, and drug use
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Running Time: 111
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Date: 08/23/2024
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Kerfuffle Feathers
By Jeffrey M. Anderson
A new team of filmmakers try to fill out this story, first filmed in 1994, with some extra padding, but Rupert Sanders's The Crow never comes to anything more than that; it just plods along, with no urgency and no purpose.
Shelly (FKA Twigs) is in some kind of serious trouble. As she tries to run away, she bumps into two police officers with a purse full of drugs, and is sent to rehab. There, she meets Eric (Bill Skarsgård), a quiet, tattoo-covered loner. They are drawn to one another. When mysterious figures, among them the imposing Marion (Laura Birn), show up at the center looking for Shelly, the couple escapes and starts a new life.
But the villains eventually catch up to them and they are both killed. Eric wakes up in some kind of nether-region and learns from Kronos (Sami Bouajila) that a person's soul is carried to the afterlife by a crow. But if a person has left behind unfinished business, they are given a second chance. So Eric goes back to earth with new healing superpowers. To achieve his vengeance, he must work his way up the chain of villains to the leader, Vincent Roeg (Danny Huston), who also seems to have otherworldly powers.
The story never really had much going on other than pure vengeance, but at least the 1994 movie — notable as the final film of Bruce Lee's son Brandon Lee — had a high style that gave it some momentum. The new The Crow spends a long time establishing the relationship between Shelly and Eric, which basically all comes down to, "they were in love."
That, subsequently, leaves less time for the actual Crow stuff. And, even with such little time left, the filmmakers waste yet more of it by showing Eric learning how to become the Crow, failing, and having to go back and strike a new, darker deal. Only before the final showdown — set during an opera, and, of course, intercut with scenes from it — does he finally put on his iconic face paint and long black coat.
The killings, going for full-bore R-rated slashings, are mostly meaningless because we really don't care about any of these people. Even Skarsgård, who is normally a gifted, Lon Chaney-like actor who seems to be able to do anything, can't convey much humanity here (not even as much as Brandon Lee did). But most of all, The Crow begs the question: if Shelly and Eric were both killed for the same reasons, why couldn't Shelly be the one that gets to come back and become a superhero?
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