I’ve been watching The Crow: Stairway to Heaven for the past few weeks, so the plot of The Crow has been in my head very recently. And I was very interested in seeing this movie…to the point of going to see it on its opening weekend.
I have to admit that I was disappointed in this movie. I like Bill Skarsgård as an actor, but I think he plays better antagonists, or morally grey characters (It and Barbarian immediately spring to mind) than the protagonist in movies.
As another reviewer said, having Eric and Shelly be kind of bad characters in this movie sort of defeated the whole purpose of Eric coming back as the Crow in the first place. One of the main tragedies about their death was the fact that they were both good people who didn’t deserve what happened to them. However, this version of the two characters had them both alcoholic drug users…and no real reason as to why they were that way. The opening scene of Eric with the dying horse might have provided some insight, but there was no further context provided to that scene.
Vincent Roeg could have been a really interesting villain, but he just didn’t do much. And the incriminating video he was so obsessed with, to the point of murdering several people to stop it from getting out? It showed very little that could have got him into trouble, because as it’s revealed later, he’s not the one who does anything violent. And given who does, Shelly’s attitude doesn’t indicate she’s been affected by it at all. She doesn’t even try to find Zadie after breaking out of the prison/rehabilitation centre…I actually don’t know where she and Eric ended up, as it seems to be both.
I did think that the scene of the opera taking place interspersed with the scenes of Eric killing soldiers worked really well visually, to an extent…but eventually, those just became really over the top and unnecessarily so. And in the original movie (and TV series) Eric had friendships with Albrecht and Sarah, that made him human and more relateable. Since he didn’t have anyone outside of Shelly in this movie, there was nothing that really humanised him.
I think there were some attempts at foreshadowing in this movie, but it wasn’t really done in a clever way. It was more of, as soon as something was said, it was immediately obvious that that would change. For instance, Kronos says to Eric, ‘You’ll continue to heal as long as your love remains pure.’ As soon as he said those words, it was immediately obvious that something would happen to make Eric have doubts/cause his love to no longer be pure.
On the whole, I was disappointed in this movie, as I think it could have been so much better, especially when compared to the original Crow movie. It isn’t a movie I would want to watch again.
Ink of Blood 