Lionsgate
It took 16 years to make "The Crow" reboot, but now it's finally out, critics say the Bill Skarsgård-fronted comic book movie is "repulsive" and "unfathomably awful."
Skarsgård plays Eric Draven, a man who is murdered by gangsters alongside his girlfriend, Shelly (FKA Twigs), only to be resurrected by a supernatural force to get revenge on his killers.
It's not the first time James O'Barr's comic book series has been adapted for the big screen, as Brandon Lee played Draven in the 1994 movie of the same name. Following Lee's accidental death in the film, three sequels were produced but they failed to replicate the success of the original movie.
Lionsgate attempted to reboot the franchise in 2008 when gritty superhero movies became a trend in Hollywood, following the success of "X-Men," "V For Vendetta," and "The Dark Knight."
Although actors like Jason Momoa, Luke Evans, and Bradley Cooper were all attached to the project, "The Crow" remained in development hell until April 2022 when Skarsgård was cast as Eric.
"The Crow" was finally released on Thursday, and the reviews are terrible.
Mashable's Kirsty Puchko tore into the film's new take on the story, which pits Eric against a demon who is collecting souls to make his life last longer on Earth. She described it as "tedious," "incoherent," and "a familiar husk stuffed with grisly, greasy nothing."
In his review for The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney called it "a sluggish, overly self-serious gloomfest," but noted that a lot of the issues stem from the script rather than the actors' performances.
Witney Seibold offered a glimmer of positivity by praising one of the action scenes in his Slash Film review and said the director "finally becomes energized and clever, using blades, bullets, and Skarsgård's lanky body to great, violent effect. It's the one sequence where 'The Crow' is any fun." However, he still branded it as "dull, lifeless, hazy, and unmoving."
The Guardian's Benjamin Lee described the reboot as "unfathomably awful," and criticized Skarsgård and Twigs' performance. He said: "There's just no pull, no urge, no passion, just B-roll of two lifeless actors posing for a lower-tier perfume ad."
Reboots are often a great way for studios to reinvent stories and characters in a way that appeals to new audiences. For example, Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight" trilogy took Batman away from the spandex and silliness of the 1990s and dropped the Caped Crusader into a crime drama with overwhelming success.
However, that isn't always the case — especially for comic book movies. There have been a slew of poorly written superhero reboots that attempt to be too violent or too grounded — like 2015's "Fantastic Four" and 2019's "Hellboy."
Unfortunately, "The Crow" appears to fall into that category rather than reaching the heights of the beloved 1994 movie.
