A reimagining of Alex Proyas' cult film “The Crow” has been released in wide release. What the director of the new film focused on, and how he spares the audience — in our review.

According to the plot of the film “The Crow,” a girl named Shelly (FKA Twigs) receives a mysterious video on her phone, forcing her to flee. To shake off pursuit, she deliberately runs into police officers who send her to a rehab for drug addicts. There she meets a tattooed nonconformist named Eric (). After a short time, Shelly's mysterious pursuers find her temporary shelter, and the heroes, who have already fallen in love, escape. They are followed by a dangerous group led by the infernal Vincent Roeg (actor Danny Huston with the mannerisms of Bulgakov's Woland). The fact is that the very video sent to Shelly somehow exposes the pursuers, and the couple is decided to be eliminated.

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When the villainous plan is realized, Eric gets a chance to resurrect. Taking a crow as his helper, he sets out to find the murderers of his beloved.

If the new “The Crow” were an ordinary revenge film, with trendy actors, beautiful shots, and characters unrelated to the 1994 film's setting, the amount of hate directed at it would be at least halved. Brandon Lee's hero was a character in a dark gothic fairy tale, a kind of Faust with a Pierrot mask on his face, whose heart held not so much anger and rage as unceasing pain from the loss of his beloved. But the new “The Crow” is more like “Romeo and Juliet” in a cyberpunk atmosphere, with post-punk on the soundtrack perfectly harmonizing with the visuals, which is also no coincidence.

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In Proyas' “The Crow,” The Cure and Nine Inch Nails played — bands that celebrate rage, fear, and melancholy. In the new film, they are replaced by Joy Division and Foals, whose songs are generally about the same thing, but with a touch of teenage sadness. This decision only strengthened the film's core: lonely and abandoned teenagers who tenderly and passionately fall in love at the wrong time, in the wrong place. This recipe has worked flawlessly since Shakespeare's time and continues to this day. And it is, of course, aimed at a more impressionable young audience.

So, director of the new “The Crow” Rupert Sanders really had no intention of mocking Proyas' cult classic, no matter how much he is accused of it. The author truly reimagined the story in a new way, demonstrating his creative vision of the original comic with an eye on the digital generation. And he ended up with this tragic zoomer melodrama, with a clumsy and unnecessary attempt to combine it with an action movie, whose grace frankly resembles a bear at a ball. Even the plot was somewhat softened, again, in favor of Eric and Shelly.

The guide in limbo (Sami Bouajila) says that accomplished revenge will resurrect them both, which, as we remember, was not even hinted at in the previous film. Here, Sanders himself genuinely pities the heroes and also tries to protect the sensitive audience from trauma (bloody showdowns apparently don't count). In the end, everything will turn out differently, of course. But everyone will stick to their own. Yes, there is darkness devouring the city and the souls of the unfortunate, but one can be saved from it. Everything is like in a good fairy tale. It's only a pity for the crow, which, unlike the 1994 version, does not help Eric at all. But it looks beautiful, we understand.

But the camera definitely loves Bill Skarsgård. Both in those moments when he smiles shyly, sitting in rehab in a ridiculous pink robe, and when he is covered in blood, smashing the head of another enemy like the unnamed driver from, and when he walks down the street, scary and dark, with a crow on his shoulder. The actor's range is gradually expanding, taking up more and more space on the screen. And Sanders sensitively exploits this, because, alas, there is no chemistry with singer FKA Twigs, who played Shelly. No matter how much the director tries to cram into the film more tearful shots of kisses through a curtain or psychedelic bathing of both in the waters of the afterlife limbo.

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Nevertheless, “The Crow” clearly did not deserve the fierce criticism that fell upon it after its release. Fans of naive and beautiful melodramas will enjoy this film. And fans of the film with Brandon Lee would do better to just rewatch it one more time. Surely there will be much new to discover. The rain cannot last forever, but Proyas' “The Crow” will live on for a very long time.

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