CINEMA
The reboot of ‘The Crow’ panned by critics after US premiere
Myths are not to be touched, they seem to want to tell us - or maybe it’s simply just a bad movie.
The original 1994 version of the gothic superhero film The Crow was adapted from a James O’Barr dark comic by from the late 80s. If the pages and ink were a way to alleviate the personal pain of its author due to a trauma, the film version went straight to cult status for obvious reasons. Its protagonist, Brandon Lee, son of the legendary Bruce Lee, died during filming from a bullet wound during one of the shooting scenes.
The character became a visual and tormented messiah of the gothic and sinister movement, and the story of that soul in pain and that broken love was immortalized in the depths of countless sensitive hearts. The reboot that has just been released in the United States appears as an affront to something sacred, or at least that seems to be indicated by the reviews that populate websites such as IMDB, Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes.
The new version of The Crow receives tomatoes at its premiere
On Metacritic, for example, while the original 1994 film scored a notable 71 out of 100, this new version is currently at 29 out of 100. On IMDB it barely passes with a 5.1, and the Rotten Tomatoes rating gives the film a 20 out of 100.
Bill Skarsgård seems to work in his ravenous, rag-tag version of The Crow, but the rest tends more toward disaster. Some of the more positive reviews, such as that of The Associated Press, acknowledge that the film “has yielded much beauty at the expense of depth or coherence.”
If we go with the negatives, you can imagine. TheWrap says that it “has baffling rules and a vague chronology, and nothing seems to matter anymore”; Slant Magazine emphasizes “a superfluous, hackneyed backstory and narrative threads that are conspicuous by their lack of emotional gravitas” while Mashable bluntly declares that “there’s no heart at the center of this bleak, dreadful reboot.”
In short, let’s keep in mind that the reviews come from professionals who, evidently, know the original work. The question we ask ourselves is whether this new reboot of The Crow will dazzle the new generations it is aimed at with its story or aesthetics. We will find out next Friday, August 30, which is when the reborn blackness will spread its wings in European cinemas.