This movie is cinematic depression. Not that it makes the viewer feel hopeless, worthless and low in energy. But what the audience watches is a hopeless, worthless and low energy movie.

Putting aside Brandon Lee's ability to stir..feelings..in generations of teenage Goth girls who have discovered the 1994 movie every week since it came out, The Crow as a media property has a simple formula. It is a tale of vengeance, redemption and the supernatural told in a style that drips with atmosphere.

The film makers know the formula but can't agree on the mixture weights. The result is a movie that has all the parts of the formula mixed up in the dullest way you could think of.

Eric & Shelly have chemistry. The film displays signs of a pulse when after their nonsensical rehab experience, they spend the summer doing drugs, having sex and making music. FKA twigs looking like a vulnerable doll in one long shot while Bill Skarsgard towers over her radiating love. In that shot you believe them. But then she is murdered and it stirs little in him. What's on screen isn't someone who is heartbroken. It's a annoyed person. The emotional peaks in the movie have been flattened and boredom is what remains.

This is a movie about bored people. The villain is a malignant presence who encourages the worst in people. He's bored. He has a right-hand woman who does his dirty work for him. She's bored. The representation of the wizard in the Campbellian mono myth appears to provide supernatural aid to Eric and help him cross the first threshold into adventure. The wizard is bored. They're all just marking time. Cinematic. Depression.

Eric returns from purgatory to revenge his slain love. So far, so Crow. But he's still the same awful fighter who can't throw a proper punch as he was when he was human. That's clever and it could have been hilarious but because the movie needs to drip with atmosphere, that atmosphere being muted and grey boredom, the filmmakers go nowhere with a good idea.

I'm a big fan of tight 100 minute mid-budget movies. Funding constrains the running time, which in turn tightens the script. But 40 minutes in I considered the opportunity cost of spending another hour on this movie. In the end it turned out to be a waste of 100 minutes. If you are a goth girl, a reformed one or know one spare yourself and others this tedium and watch the 1994 movie again. It became a classic action horror picture for a sub-culture. This movie is only fit for the digital landfill.