you know every once in a while I get an attack of the Galloping crazies and almost manage to convince myself that remakes can be a good idea Cape Fear Invasion of the Body Snatchers the fly and Battle Star Galactica were all big improvements Over The Originals taking great Concepts that were once limited by technology budget or restrictive censorship and producing much better realizations of their original artistic Vision that's nice and everything but here's the thing I would happily trade all of those just to wipe 2024's the Crow from my brain and pretend that it never
existed that film was two solid hours of pointless boring dreary Bleak unimaginative unlikable self-inflicted misery a completely soulless corporatized modern day rehash that makes a mockery of the source material fails to understand any of the themes or characters that made it so iconic and completely fails to recapture the magic of the 1994 original in short it's a perfect example of all of the most depressing Tendencies of modern remakes and a solid Contender for the worst movie of the year anyway let's get the plot summary over with so that we can all get the hell out
of here the movie begins not with Eric Draven as you might expect considering he's supposed to be the protagonist of the [ __ ] movie but with Shelly future corpse and revenge motivation in this case however she's a drug addicted former prostitute yeah quite the catch I don't think I'd be coming back from the dead for this girl anyway whatever Shell's forced to go on the run from a local crime Lord named Vincent after one of her friends sends an incriminating video to her one of Vincent's men is after her so she employs some big
brain thinking and bumps into a pair of cops so that she can get arrested for drug possession now call me crazy here but couldn't you have just told them what was happening and asked for help I mean generally cops tend to be pretty sympathetic to young women that claim they're being stalked by some crazy mobster guy ah whatever so Shelly gets sent to a rehab center which for some reason allows male and female inmates to mingle freely together because that's definitely not going to result in all kinds of assaults and unwanted pregnancies you serious and
that is where she meets and befriends Eric an absolute [ __ ] that gets bullied and victimized by practically everyone in the place anyway when Vincent's right- hand uh woman shows up looking for Shelly they're forced to escape together because Eric knows exactly how to get out of there which kind of makes you want wonder why he's never escaped before now but whatever so they get out and they start a relationship together and this is where the movie goes from borderline tolerable to completely tedious the next 30 minutes or so are nothing but a series
of excruciating dates and weirdly protracted love scenes between a completely unlikable [ __ ] and a woman with all the charm and appeal of a greasy daer Kebab that's been lying on a stone cold pavement all night and do not ask me how I know that we've all done things we're not proud of okay thankfully though Vincent's gos eventually show up and put the two of them out of my misery only for Eric to get resurrected by this weird arel named Kronos who demands that he kill Vincent see it turns out that Vincent made a
deal with the devil to live forever and Kronos isn't too happy about it so if Eric can kill him then he'll get Shelly back and the two of them can live happily ever after yay now you might think after all this tedious [ __ ] that it's finally crowing time but nah Eric's still a useless [ __ ] who cries all the time the only difference is that he can't die now and any injuries heal up within seconds because he's powered by love or something oh come on Jesus what is this a Disney movie anyway
despite all these Supernatural advantages he still manages to [ __ ] up to such a degree that even Kronos gives up and tells him to piss off because Shell's getting sent to hell now oh no anyway but then he's like nah I'll take her place and then he comes back again as's the actual crew this time after about 90 minutes of the kind of blue balling that would make Tatiana look like an absolute amateur then there's a very long and tedious fight scene and he eventually kills Vincent because it turns out that an immortal unkillable
demon ninja with superpowers versus a 60-year-old man isn't quite the Epic matchup that you think it is so Eric Gets Sent to Hell instead and Shelly gets resurrected on the night that she died which means none of this ever happens I don't [ __ ] know anyway that's it that's the plot for the crow you know I'm struggling to think of any remake that missed the point of the original quite as spectacularly as this movie the 1994 original was a dark Gothic Urban fairy tale centered around a tragic protagonist driven by his quest for Revenge
beyond the grave there was a kind of Haunting Beauty to be found in the stylized dilapidated citycape he lived in there was a Bittersweet undertone to Eric's violent quest for vengeance underscored by little moments of humanity and kindness and the tentative relationships he tried to form along the way knowing that they could never last and the script showed you just enough to let you understand his Supernatural nature but restrained enough to hold back and keep a lot of things ambiguous and mysterious it was actually a very thoughtful well balanced and well-made movie that was way
ahead of its time and aside from some janky visual effects still holds up pretty well even today the Remake on the other hand is just a grimy violent depressingly Bleak and empty exercise and stupidity there's no soul to this film and no point to it it feels like a movie made to order assembled from stock ingredients to retain the IP rights or filler release quot instead of some passion project that anyone was particularly driven to make the decision to focus so much of the narrative on Shelly and Eric's relationship is probably the first and biggest
misstep but it's definitely not the last Shelly was never really important as a character in the original movie in fact she was already [ __ ] dead when the film opens and we only really get to see her in a couple of brief flashbacks and you know what that's perfect for a film like the crow because it's Eric's love for Shelly and his quest for Revenge that drives the narrative rather than Shelly as an actual person she's a symbol for doomed love Lost Innocence and missed opportunities the Shelly in this movie though is kind of
overbearing and annoying she always takes the lead in every situation while Eric follows her like a lost puppy she spites the kind of cringe dialogue that feels like it was written by an edgy 13-year-old tumbler author and having her played by some [ __ ] R&B singer who's never acted in anything before was a bold Choice cotton it just didn't pay off for anyone though Eric on the other hand comes across as a complete [ __ ] who spends most of the movie crying and suking and he's played by a horribly miscast Bill scars guards
I mean Brandon Lee was always going to be a tough act to follow and it's not like scars guard is a bad actor generally but he feels lost in a role that doesn't seem to know what it wants from him he's got no chemistry with Shelly he kind of meanders through the bulk of the movie like he's ashamed to be there and he only really seems to come alive during the fight scenes yeah the movie is definitely gory and violent which is always nice to see but it feels perfunctory instead of meaningful there's no emotional
releases Eric takes revenge on the people who destroyed his life it's just a guy going through some highly choreographed action scenes because he can Danny Houston is another talented actor delivering another adequate performance in a role that doesn't really deserve him Michael wi cot's top dollar from the original movie was a [ __ ] brilliant antagonist menacing and eloquent and cool but Vincent just feels Bland and forgettable by comparison ultimately the question I keep asking myself about the crow is why was this movie even made who was it made for and what did they even
expect to get from it the Brandon Lee movie was about as good as a film like this is ever going to get you're not going to improve on it and you're not going to add a different perspective by rehashing the same story again so why bother I don't know and I don't care but if you really want to revisit the story of Eric Draven then go and watch the 1994 version and pretend that this pile of [ __ ] never existed anyway that's all I've got for today go away now
