WATCH: The Reboot of 'The Crow' Looks Surprisingly Good?
Soulmates Eric Draven and Shelly Webster are brutally murdered. Given the chance to save his true love by sacrificing himself, Eric sets out to seek revenge, traversing the worlds of the living and the dead to put the wrong things right.
Lets get the conversation out of the way early. 'The Crow' (1994) is a cult classic the almost entirely remembered for one single fact: Brandon Lee, son of Bruce Lee, was accidentally shot and killed on set while filming. They cut around the rest of his scenes, used some body doubles and released the movie anyway. It's a solid comic book movie!
That said, I don't think it is an untouchable IP. It's a cool concept, well-liked comic book and an interesting world to dive into. But, because Brandon Lee passed during the making of the movie, there is no world where a new version of this movie gets made without there being backlash. There could be the greatest cast and director attached and you would still see a ton of people responding to the trailer with pure venom. However, I think if you watch this trailer objectively, it's really not that bad!
The crime sequences look good, the violence was very R-Rated and Bill Skarsgard is honestly a great fit for the role! That's all perfect for this IP. I definitely didn't love the weirdo haircuts but that's maybe part of the "twisted" vibe they're going for. The music was maybe the part that turned me off the most. The Crow is built for goth music, not this strange rap shit. All that said, I think this wasn't bad. You could do a lot worse for reboot of a comic book movie.
I'll also note that, if the powers that be really wanted to, they could have just made a different movie with a Crow type vibe. Undead vengeance isn't something that belongs only to Eric Draven.
On the backend, this was directed by Rupert Sanders, who previously made' Snow White and the Huntsman' (mehh) and 'Ghost in the Shell' (BAD) and written by Zach Baylin ('King Richard', 'Creed III', 'Gran Turismo') winning an Oscar for 'King Richard'. I don't love Sanders work but Baylin's scripts have been good.
This comes to theaters June 7th.