‘The Crow’ Is an Unfathomably Inept ‘Joker’ Ripoff
In Hollywood as in comics, the dead are always waiting to be resurrected, so it’s natural that The Crow would find new life 30 years after it helped pioneer ’90s goth style and made a legend out of star Brandon Lee, who tragically died during its production.
Like its predecessor, Rupert Sanders’ reboot, which hits theaters August 23, concerns an innocent man who’s murdered alongside his beloved and then revived as an avenging angel of death, compelled to kill his killers. Yet whereas Alex Proyas’ original (based on James O’Barr’s comic book series) forged a distinctively dark, brooding identity of its own, this do-over is a pale shadow of that which came before it, and that’s especially true with regards to its protagonist, a furious punisher who stalks a rainy pseudo-Gotham in a Matrix-y raincoat while covered in tattoos—including on his face—that render him a goofy rip-off of Jared Leto’s awful Suicide Squad Joker.
As with that superhero fiasco’s Clown Prince of Crime, Bill Skarsgård’s Crow is an example of trying too hard; the ink that decorates his body (including “Lullaby” written above his eyebrow and tragedy/comedy masks accompanied by the motto, “Cry Now, Cry Later” on his hands) comes across as a desperate attempt to mark the character as ultra-grim and gloomy.