The reviews for The Crow, the 2024 adaptation of James O’Barr’s comic book series of the same name, are coming out — and they are far from flattering. This film, one of the most highly-anticipated releases of the year, is the second direct cinematic adaptation of O’Barr’s source material after the 1994 movie, featuring Brandon Lee.
The Crow reviews call 2024 movie a ‘total disaster’
The Crow debuted in the U.S. theaters on August 23, and the reviews it has been receiving paint a rather grim picture.
Benjamin Lee of The Guardian called The Crow “a total, head-in-hands disaster,” adding the film is “incoherently plotted and sloppily made, destined to join the annals of the very worst and most pointless remakes ever made.”
Meanwhile, Inverse’s Lyvie Scott wrote that The Crow sought to update the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, but it was ultimately restrained by its source material. “What starts as a compelling love story ends up choked by a gory, gruesome tale of revenge: there are glimmers of brilliance here and there, but there’s not always room for the dark to mingle with the light,” Scott elaborated.
Derek Smith of Slant Magazine gave the 2024 film credits for not being a “rehash” of the previous adaptation, but went on to criticize the “superfluous, hackneyed backstory and narrative threads,” which he believed “are conspicuous for their lack of emotional gravitas, causing the film to feel like a wheel-spinning exercise.”
In the midst of all this criticism, the Rupert Sanders directorial venture has received a few positive responses from professional reviewers. Discussing Film’s Bill Bria acknowledged that The Crow has flaws but argued that it has its share of wonderful moments as well. “Make no mistake: The Crow (2024) is flawed and will probably not win over diehard fans of the classic 1994 movie, but it’s the bright spots in between those flaws that keep it from being dull or forgettable,” Bria observed.
The Crow receives low Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores
The Crow has garnered abysmal scores both on the aggregating site Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, which rates films via a weighted average. On Rotten Tomatoes, The Crow has a 21% approval rating after 42 reviews, while the gothic superhero movie has accumulated a score of 29 after 18 reviews on Metacritic.
As implied above, there had been considerable buzz around the movie. Accordingly, even though the film has performed poorly with the critics, it still can do well at the box office, both in the U.S. and internationally. Now, how it performs at the box office remains to be seen.
