The First Reactions To The Crow 2024 Remake Call It A Soulless, Confusing Mess

First reactions to Rupert Sanders' bloody new adaptation of "The Crow" are rolling in, and it doesn't seem like the remake is going to take flight. At the time of this article's submission, it has an abysmal 22% Rotten Tomatoes critical score, meaning that just over 1 in 5 industry professionals gave the movie a negative review. It's a low grade, but it's not entirely unexpected for a movie that was controversial before it was ever even made.

The root of "The Crow" remake skepticism harkens back to the original film's tragic production, during which rising star Brandon Lee was killed in a gun-related accident that fueled speculation of a curse on the film. Superstition aside, fans of Lee — and of the original film — have been vocal for years about their disinterest in another "The Crow" adaptation, even as multiple sequels to the original have been released to little fanfare. Sanders' version has been years in the making, as several filmmakers have been unsuccessful in their attempts to re-adapt James O'Barr's comic book series origin story over the past two decades. Of course, critics seeing the film must attempt to cordon off all that baggage to review the 2024 version of "The Crow" on its own merits. Unfortunately, it sounds like the film might fail by that standard, too.

/Film's own Witney Seibold isn't pulling any punches with his review of the film, which he calls "dull, lifeless, [and] meaningless." He's not alone in that assessment: on X, Bloody Disgusting's Meagan Navarro wrote about the agreed-upon consensus that she and another attendee came to right after their screening ended. "Just bonded with a complete stranger at my screening of THE CROW over how empty and soulless it is," Navarro posted. "Didn't even see his face in the dark, we just instantly commiserated over the hot mess that was this movie as soon as the credits hit." Words like "soulless," "lifeless," and "empty" come up more than once in this initial wave of reviews, with Lyvie Scott even calling Sanders "a master of empty allure" in her Inverse write-up. "It's almost ironic how such a soulful concept can be damned by a lack of material," Scott writes.

Critics also cite an unexpected issue with "The Crow": it apparently doesn't make sense. Seibold writes that the movie lacks clarity, explaining: "Thanks to sloppy editing and a general lack of basic storytelling acumen, events speed past without much explanation, emotional resonance, or, in some scenes, basic communication." Over at The Wrap, William Bibbiani says something similar. "This new remake takes the simplest story in the world and makes its plot and the mythology weirdly complicated, to the point that it all becomes total nonsense," he writes in his negative review. "It's got perplexing rules and a vague chronology and nothing seems like it matters anymore."

Pacing issues are also mentioned frequently in these and similar reviews. The film apparently takes its sweet time getting to the story that resurrection comic fans know and love, instead spending time, as Rolling Stone's David Fear writes, focusing on "a cross between a faux-erotic perfume commercial and outtakes from a failed YA series, and couldn't feel more sluggish." /Film's Bill Bria, writing for Discussing Film, also notes this problem. According to his mixed-positive review, the film "seems to downshift when it should be zooming forward, and the glacial second act is the most egregious of the movie's handful of sins."

If you're still itching to go see "The Crow," don't despair yet: despite its apparent problems, the film already has its fans. Critic and writer Reyna Cervantes notes on X that she "absolutely loved THE CROW," complimenting co-stars Bill Skarsgard and FKA Twigs on their chemistry, citing the "jaw dropping gore," and describing the film as "A modern gothic romance that plays like TWILIGHT for scumbags (complimentary)." Rachel Leishman, who has never seen the original film, writes for The Mary Sue that in the new version "We get to see a real love story happening along with an aesthetic that people love." That aesthetic is, according to Leishman, "something that feels like your emo phase never left." Over at Nerdist, DarkSkyLady describes it differently: "less seedy and more glitterati."

Critics who did seem to like the film tend to bring up its performances, as well as the strong love story angle the remake takes. According to Bria, the movie "tattoos its heart on itself, telling a Faust-esque, horror-soaked love story mashed up with a merciless revenge action thriller." Both lead actors are getting some praise in reviews so far, with Rolling Stone singling out Skarsgard as the right person to "fill those Demonias boots." As Fear explains, "Bill Skarsgård can do lithe action hero and skin-crawling nightmare fodder with equal amounts of ease."

The film's violence is mentioned in most early reviews, though whether or not the gore-soaked movie is made better by it seems to be for each audience member to decide. At Mashable, Kristy Puchko writes in a negative review that "the director seemingly relishes in the movie's R-rating, creating an ultra-violent spectacle that is at times hard to stomach, much less watch." She does compliment the way the film's color palette makes "the hard reds and blacks of blood and bile all the more putrid on-screen." Dennis Harvey, writing a mixed review for Variety, also links the film's brutality to its "elevated" style, writing, "Even when the violence is very 'hard R,' there's little sense of lurid pulp jollies being had. It's satisfying enough, but has a semi-detached effect."

Initial critical responses to "The Crow" may be largely negative, but it's clear from the positive ones that the film has enough going on – style, romance, buckets of blood – to attract some audience members while repelling others. It already sounds like it has the makings of a cult favorite among select viewers, even as it seemingly fails to resurrect a franchise that some believe should've stayed dead to begin with.

"The Crow" is now in theaters.