The word that best describes THE CROW is moribund. Even during the ecstatic orgy of bloodletting that caps this reboot of Alex Proyas’ 1994 film, it is somnambulant as it goes through its paces charting the lengths to which true love can push a young man when faced with the devil. Or his charming associate in the person of Danny Huston.
This time out in the Crow franchise, the titular character is Eric (Bill Skarsgård), a young man tucked away at a rehab facility run like a prison, but where the co-ed inmates all wear cheery shades of pink. He’s had a rough life that includes watching his beloved horse die a gruesome death and setting a fire in revenge. We aren’t told how long he’s been at the facility when the love of his life arrives in the person of Shelly (FKA twigs). She’s on the run from some very bad people because of a compromising video that her best friend (Isabella Wei) texted to her, prompting the compromisee, Mr. Roeg (Huston), to dispatch his henchmen to round them up and recover the phone on which it now resides. Quick-thinking Shelly decided to hide from them by getting herself arrested for carrying drugs. It worked, and her first order of business when she lands at the facility is to make intense eye contact with Eric, and then go after him, fraternization prohibitions be darned.
The forward young woman on the run and the shy and bullied boy with a troubled past click. Unfortunately, Mr. Roeg finds her, prompting Eric to help her escape and, what the heck, join her on the lam. Fortunately, the ankle monitors the inmates wear are of an easy pop-off design.
Until now the narrative has not been a work of pristine excellence, but it got the job done. Alas, this is the point where that all falls apart. There are montages of Eric and Shelly consummating their love in the apartment of Shelly’s friend who, conveniently, lives in the Caribbean. There are field trips outside to swim in a quarry and to dance in a club because when you’re on the run, get together with friends and be out in public as much as possible. Of course it goes wrong. Shelley is dispatched by the henchman as is Eric, but for Eric, it’s the start of his adventure, not the end. Landing in a limbo decked out as an abandoned railway station, he gets the scoop on why courtesy of the mysterious Kronos (Sami Bouajilla), who sends him back to the land of the living on a mission to save Shelly by killing his killers.
From middling special effects to dialogue that tries, and fails, to be profound, this is a tedious effort weighed down by ersatz arty shots that only serve to emphasize how mundane the effort is. It culminates in that ci-mentioned orgy of bloodshed is intercut with an opera entitled Robert Le Diable by Giacomo Meyerbeer wherein dancers in questionable headgear writhe as the singers emote and an army of well-dressed henchman die by the sword (mostly) in the fancy foyer and grand staircase of the opera house. Furthering the irritation is a desperately insistent score that begs us to be moved, even a little, by what is happening (or not) on screen.
Skarsgård and twigs fail to generate much in the way of heat, though Skarsgård does achieve a puppy-like sweetness at odds with his grunge-punk display of tattoos and a haircut designed to confound. He also does a fine job of being confused when necessary, particularly when he discovers his new-found ability to heal quickly, if not painlessly, and in becoming a killing machine when on his quest to save Shelly.
THE CROW is an egregious waste of an effort that relies on gore instead of suspense, and uninspired action sequences instead of a compellingly realized plot. It’s a frustrating meander through the mythic that leads through the obvious on the way to nowhere.
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