The Crow (2024) - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

“You’d think they’d come up with something better, wouldn’t you? But you know, they don’t expect us to linger.”
- an actual quote from the film that perfectly describes itself.

As someone who absorbs art and media in numerous forms from books and comics to films and television shows, I don’t immediately shy away from the idea of a franchise reboot or remake. Every time we get a new James Bond, it’s essentially a franchise reboot. Every time DC has another Crisis event, the new creative teams are resetting Batman, Superman, and the rest of the Justice League. We’ve gone down this line for three Spider-Man film franchises now - each with its own unique positives and negatives. So it was only a matter of time before J.O. Barr’s The Crow would undergo the reimaging, reboot, remake resurrection machine. I guess the best thing I can say about Rupert Sander’s film is that it thankfully doesn’t diminish the quality of the Brandon Lee-starring original, but this franchise is again DOA.

While our tragic lovers Eric and Shelly have the same names, this is a very, very different story to the point they should have just used different names altogether. Rather than through flashbacks, we get to watch Eric (Bill Skarsgård) and Shelly (FKA Twigs) meet and fall in love while at a rehab center. As this anemic angle plays out, we learn that Shelly has a dark past involving a high society man called Roeg (Danny Huston) who has made a pact with the Devil to harvest the souls of the innocent so he can live forever. No joke, that’s our plot folks. But wait, there’s more! It turns out Shelly has a video of Roeg doing his thing on her phone, so you know if that ever got out, whoopsie, no more eternal life for Roeg! When the two lovers are finally murdered forty minutes into the film, Eric is given the chance to save both their souls and get his revenge one bullet at a time.

What can I say that hasn’t already been said about the other sequels in The Crow franchise? This 2024 version is just another bad Crow film, but it had a sizable budget, a competent director, and a major marketing campaign with a versatile lead actor making it a rather unique offering. A few years after the bust that was The Crow: City of Angels, Dimension Films did what they did best and chucked the franchise into the direct-to-video mill before it died a true death with 2005’s truly terrible The Crow: Wicked Prayer. Thankfully, this 2024 version of The Crow isn’t that bad - but it’s not at all great.

To break it down, the film has one really great climactic sequence with Skarsgård’s Eric entering an opera house during a live performance with a sword and dispatching all of the bad guy’s henchmen. It’s exciting, well-executed, gnarly as hell, and what you’d want to see in a modern Crow film - blood, guts, and all. The problem is this is the only actually really good scene in the whole film. The rest is painfully bland filler that takes forever to get anywhere interesting or worse yet, really goes nowhere at all. 

We spend way too much time with Eric and Shelly trying to prove to the audience their love is real. It took 40 minutes to do what the original film did in just a couple of far more convincing five-second flashbacks. Skarsgård and Twigs lack any true chemistry to the point the film keeps telling us they were in love desperately trying to prove to us they had a real connection so we'd give a damn. There’s no heartfelt tragedy here. There’s nothing that makes us feel Eric’s unendurable pain that he had to come back for vengeance. Putting it simply, there’s nothing here to make us believe in angels. 

While I love a menacing Danny Huston, he’s simply on autopilot after doing the same part already in Wonder Woman. To his credit, the film’s lone saving grace is Bill Skarsgård who is doing everything he can with what he’s got to work with. After a while, you almost stop paying attention to the ridiculous tattoos adorning his entire body as he broods his way through this sluggish enterprise. It was another box office bust for Lionsgate, but go check out Boy Kills World, that was at least a fun and entertaining Skarsgård flick. 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
2024’s The Crow joins the murder as the latest entry in the troubled franchise with a two-disc 4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital release from Lionsgate. The 4K is pressed on a BD100 disc with a Region A BD50 serving up the 1080p. The discs are housed in an eco-friendly case with an identical slipcover.

While the film itself might not be much to watch but it’s a visually well-made flick and makes for a damned impressive 2160p Dolby Vision transfer. The film’s locations are kind of all over the place from a brutalist rehab facility to a grand opera house so it never gets too stuck in one look. We have full daylight happy scenes and a slew of dark creepy locations to stress the visuals. Details for facial features, fashions, and an abundance of tattoos look sharp and clear. I was really impressed by the gore effects of Eric healing after each wound, that was at least a new interesting franchise wrinkle. The Dolby Vision grade offers a full range of enhancements from the nice bright whites to the deep dark blacks. Colors are well saturated giving plenty of attention to key primaries while making sure skin tones are healthy and human. Top to bottom this is a great-looking disc and the film itself is visually interesting, just wish the story worked better we could enjoy what we were seeing a little more.  

Like the video transfer, the Dolby Atmos track brings its best. Delivering wall-to-wall intensity, the film’s soundscape makes the most of every scene and location. When we’re at the rehab facility, the mix sounds airy and expansive with a lot of echo and distance imaging moving throughout the channels. When we’re in a tight confined location the soundscape is nice and constricted letting the impact of gunfire sound hit that much harder. The best sequences are a gunfight in a car driving through a busy tunnel and then the big climactic Opera House sword/gunfight sequence. I was really impressed with the imaging for these sequences how the bullet blasts moved between channels through the sides, rears, and up into the heights. A great mix all around.

While the film might not be the best, Lionsgate gives the set a few solid bonus features to enjoy. While there isn’t an audio commentary, there is a hell of an expansive making-of documentary. The piece can feel a little back-patty, but we get a lot of great interviews from the cast and crew and there’s a fair bit of material that actually gets into some real machinations of pulling the film together. After that, we have a nice look at the film’s new score and an oddly self-congratulatory look at the film’s producer. 

• True Love Never Dies: Making The Crow (HD 1:05:56)
• Dark Romance: The Score (HD 11:27)
• Reborn Through Revenge: Main Title Sequence (HD 2:06)
• Every Film is a Miracle: A Tribute to Edward R. Pressman (HD 11:08)
• Deleted Scenes (HD 5:53)
• Theatrical Trailer (HD 3:08)

From the start, The Crow has been a troubled franchise. From the death of Brandon Lee to the number of uninspired, anemic, and ultimately disappointing sequels, one has to question why they keep trying to make this bird fly higher than it is capable. Bill Skarsgård is a more than capable actor and was well suited for taking over the role of the tragic anti-hero. Unfortunately, this film is weighted by a legacy it can’t live up to, despite how great Skarsgård is in it. With that, one incredible action sequence a feature film does not make. There are solid moments, it’s still not the worst Crow film but the third best of the franchise is a sad rung to land on for The Crow. On 4K the film soars with genuinely excellent Dolby Vision transfer and a fully-active Atmos audio mix to match. Bonus features might not be abundantly expansive, but there are some genuine quality bits to watch after the main show is over. For those interested I’d say it’s Worth A Look but maybe stream it first beforehand, a blind buy just isn’t recommended.