Released thirty years ago this year, The Crow (The Raven), a film by Alex Proyas inspired by the comics by James O’Barr, quickly became a cult classic. Indeed, the tragic death of actor Brandon Lee, fatally wounded in the middle of filming by a gun that should have been loaded with blanks, gave a sinister aura to the production even before its release. The film tells the story of the vengeance of a man who comes back from the dead to punish the murderers of his lover and him, the morbid fascination was at its peak. Not to mention the modern-gothic style, which could not have been more appropriate. After three mediocre sequels, a remake which probably won’t revive the saga.
It must be said that the project had been in development for more than fifteen years. Finally, it was Rupert Sanders who was entrusted with the production of the film. For the record, we owe to the latter Snow White and the Huntsman (Snow White and the Huntsman) and the live-action version of Ghost in the Shell (Ghost in the Shell. The Movie): polished but hollow feature films. The Crow is part of this continuity.
Although this time, the director’s aesthetic leanings generate a universe that is never totally cohesive. There is a very “rainy, nocturnal” atmosphere. comic book ” of the original, of the elegant but anonymous urban realism, of the bucolic asides, of the dreaminess worthy of a perfume advertisement…
It’s a film devoid of identity, but which searches for one by going in all directions (the “goth-emo-pop” musical choices are in keeping with this).
The screenplay by Zach Baylin (King Richard / King Richard, Beyond the Game) and William Schneider (Return to Silent Hill) only loosely takes up the original plot, essentially preserving only the figure of the immortal vengeful lover.
Among other disparities, in this version, the antagonist is also a supernatural being, which only works moderately. Danny Huston, a regular at “bad guys” (30 Days of Nights / 30 days of night ; Wonder Woman), is suave but too brief in this underwritten role (as are all the secondary scores).
THE remake also spends the entire (very long) first act setting up the love story between Eric, a young man with a troubled past, and Shelly, a young woman with an equally troubled past, but with more recent troubles. Their meeting in a sort of state detox center, somewhere between a prison and a spa, is so sentimental that it quickly becomes tiresome. The mannered dialogue doesn’t help.
The second act, in which Eric goes back and forth between the real world and limbo, where a sort of guardian angel serves him (and us) heavily explanatory dialogue, is worse.
Inexplicably insignificant
Him so terrifying in the diptych It (That), Bill Skarsgård is inexplicably insignificant in the title role. His character is more inclined to lament than torment of the soul. It’s had its day.
On the other hand, the third act, completely gory, completely grand guignol, is delightful. Set in the opera, this apotheosis alternates a grandiose representation of Robert the Devilby Giacomo Meyerbeer, and the bloody confrontation between Eric and an army of henchmen. Eric wielding the katana, one cannot help but think of Kill Bill (Kill Bill), by Quentin Tarantino. Although this parallel montage there, in this precise context, will undoubtedly have been inspired by the finale of The Godfather Part III (The Godfather 3), by Francis Ford Coppola.
These fifteen minutes and some change are in any case by far the most successful. The problem is that this passage seems to belong to a different film. A film, potentially, quite a bit more entertaining.