“The Crow,” a film directed by Rupert Sanders and starring Bill Skarsgård, tells the story of Eric, a young man who cannot accept losing his partner. The immense pain he felt from her death causes him to return from the dead to settle the score with those who killed her once and for all, and thus revive both himself and her to live together again.
Rupert Sanders’ feature film needs a very important factor here that must be well worked out, which is the chemistry of the relationship between Eric and Shelly (played by FKA twigs). The film’s premise will entirely work on the relationship between these two, and how their true love can move barriers that can even bring people back from the world of the dead. This romance needs to be well thought out, making viewers really leave the film thinking that the two protagonists truly loved each other and it was something genuine. After saying all this, the film failed in this aspect, which was supposed to be the main one.
The chemistry between Shelly and Eric does not work at all, even for the time they were worked on (just over 30 minutes), which, in my opinion, I don’t see how anyone will be able to bring this idea of pure love in such a short time. Moreover, their entire relationship does not give any credibility that they love each other, being scenes and more scenes of them just partying as if it were a teenage romance that will last 2 months. I got the impression that they were living the moment of the relationship, and not something more to last, making all this culminate in an extremely shallow couple that does not give you any belief that this is the “love that moves mountains,” as the film proposes.
The main actors are competent in their work, not that a gala performance would save the disaster that was this relationship construction. Bill delivers well in his scenes where he needs to appear intimidating to the people who face him, as he is a regenerating undead seeking blood. FKA twigs appears little in the film, basically only in the first act and the end, but in these parts where she appears, she works regularly, nothing more.
The film also fails to better develop Eric’s character and other plots. He has his conflicts in the film, with his doubt about true love after seeing the video on Shelly’s cell phone, but that is worked out so quickly in the afterlife that it makes you feel like “was that all he needed to do?” We don’t have development of the main villain played by Danny Huston, we don’t have decent development of Eric’s doubt, Shelly’s relationship with her mother, and several other plots. Everything is done in a way that seems like the film rushed to make it and forgot these parts.
Speaking about the film’s action, it was something that really disappointed me. I didn’t watch the 1994 film by Brandon Lee or the comics, so from the trailer, I was expecting action scenes that would really take my breath away, as the premise of someone immortal walking around killing everyone is very interesting in my view, but it seems the film didn’t work on that part as there were very few sequences of the famous “fight scenes.” I really wanted to see more of that in the film, nothing exaggerated, but that would satisfy this thirst I had to see in the cinema.
But in the part where the film does these action scenes, director Rupert Sanders managed to do a good job, like the opera sequence, which is the highest point of the entire film. Eric in this part shows how determined he is to save his beloved’s soul, showing all his power and with that touch of violence that makes you forget for a while how bad the relationship between the two is on screen, and that was what I wanted to see more in the film, which did not happen.
The world-building of this film is also very good, and it came from the comics. This whole idea of having an in-between world and the soul that cannot rest, even if briefly discussed in the film, is something that makes it much more interesting. The crows that follow Eric throughout the film and make you know that whenever one of them appears, something important will happen on screen. The whole sequence where Eric dies, sees his beloved sinking, arrives at the train station, and the whole visual of the protagonist is really cool to see on screen. It’s a shame it’s not so well worked out, but whenever he goes into action, it’s something that captivates me to pay attention to how cool it was.
The film also works very well on the special effects, which was another crucial part for the film, and this time they got it right with excellence. In the various scenes where the protagonist ends up getting hurt in the most horrible ways possible (even with part of his stomach almost coming out), it is very well done and really makes you feel that the protagonist is being hurt in all possible ways there.
The Crow is a film that ends up disappointing due to the lack of a captivating romance and of some parts of the film that seem to have been “skipped” to make it happen, but it has some action scenes that are very good to watch and a very interesting world. It’s a film that, if you don’t care much about the story, you might leave the theater satisfied.
The Crow releases in theaters on August 23.
