The Crow reboot forgets what made the comic book and 1994 movie so special in the first place

Aug. 30, 2024

Opinion: The Crow reboot makes two major changes from the original movie - but at what cost?

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

Warning: spoilers ahead for The Crow!

Sometimes, a crow can bring your soul back from the land of the dead to put the wrong things right. And sometimes, just sometimes, a comic book about grief reimagined as a superpower is readapted for the big screen without the core elements that make it worth a live-action adaptation in the first place.

I’ve said before that The Crow is not your ordinary comic book – and I’ll say it a million more times if I have to. When writer and graphic artist James O’Barr was just 18, his fiancee Beverly was killed by a drunk driver while on her way to pick him up from work. Wracked with guilt and suffering from immeasurable grief, O’Barr began writing and drawing The Crow as a way to cope – he didn’t care whether it was published or not. It’s a love letter to O’Barr’s fiancee and one that – to quote Eric Draven himself – knows pain at the molecular level. What if we could come back? We can’t do it over, but what if we could come back?What if we could fix it?

There is no “crow” in The Crow

As Bai Ling’s character explains in the original film, the crow is the link between the living and the dead. It acts as Eric’s lifeline. It grants him his temporary immortality. It acts as his ears and eyes and points him in the direction of each villain. When he’s about to show up and shed some blood, the crow enters the room or sits on the windowsill as a warning of what’s to come. In the comic, it talks. It scolds Eric when he gets caught up in memories of Shelly. It’s so much more than just a bird.

In the new movie, however, it’s just a bird. It’s not a crow that brings Eric (Bill Skarsgard) back from the dead, but a spirit guide named Kronos (who was most likely based on the comic book’s Skull Cowboy). He’s the one in charge of granting – and taking away – Eric’s chance to avenge his and Shelly’s (FKA Twigs) deaths. The crow then serves as a pet of sorts, a little guy who follows him throughout the city and doesn’t do much of anything else. Now I’m not saying they should’ve put a talking CGI crow on Eric’s shoulder, but the film could’ve benefitted from honoring what’s considered the conceit, the core, of the story and franchise.

Bringing all the latest movie news, features, and reviews to your inbox

At its truest core, The Crow is a love story. It’s about Eric’s undying, unwavering love for Shelly. It’s the throughline. It’s the only thing in the story that remains unchanged. Having him briefly fall out of love mid-revenge mission completely defeats the point of the story. Sure, he falls back in love – but only after he learns that the crime she committed was not actually her fault. It’s only when she becomes a good person again in his eyes that he regains his powers and continues on – and that’s not what Eric Draven is supposed to do, who Eric Draven is supposed to be. This is also why I think it should’ve been another sequel in the franchise, with different names for the main characters, rather than a new version of Eric and Shelly’s story.

Yes, the film opens with a scene taken straight from the comic book. Yes, the makeup montage honors the scene from the original movie right down to the broken mirror. But it’s missing the bigger picture, misunderstanding the point. It doesn’t make someone want to reach for the source material, to read a book that turns unimaginable grief into something special and beautiful, but I hope in my heart of hearts that they decide to anyway. It can’t rain all the time.

Lauren Milici is a Senior Entertainment Writer for GamesRadar+ currently based in the Midwest. She previously reported on breaking news for The Independent’s Indy100 and created TV and film listicles for Ranker. Her work has been published in Fandom, Nerdist, Paste Magazine, Vulture, PopSugar, Fangoria, and more.

A year after pitching the idea to DC, Mike Flanagan is officially writing a Clayface movie

Kraven the Hunter review: “The insistence on an R-rating helps save this, with a decent helping of bloodthirsty action”

Star Wars actor Daisy Ridley’s new heist movie gets first trailer, and it looks Die Hard mixed with Mission: Impossible