'The Crow' review: Pitch-black action-fantasy-romance that's better than the original

In "The Crow," a tortured soul named Eric walks the streets of a lonely city, his eyeliner smeared, his emotional pain palpable. On the soundtrack: "M.E.," an ice-cold synth-lament from Gary Numan. Eric is yearning for his lost love, Shelly, who is dead. And technically, so is Eric.

Goth rockers, rejoice! You are still being represented on-screen, and not just by Tim Burton’s upcoming "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice." For those who take their doom and gloom seriously, Rupert Sanders’ "The Crow" — based on James O’Barr’s 1989 graphic novel — may be just the ticket: a pitch-black action-fantasy-romance accompanied by extreme gore, vampiric undertones and songs with lyrics like "There’s total depravity / Staring back at me."

It's an improvement on the 1994 film version, a trashy cult favorite haunted by the very real death of its 28-year-old star, Brandon Lee, son of martial arts icon Bruce Lee. (He was killed on set by a dummy round from a gun, 27 years before Alec Baldwin’s "Rust" made headlines for similar reasons.) This "Crow" features much state-of-the-art bloodshed, but it also has an occasionally sensitive screenplay by Zach Baylin ("King Richard") and William Schneider. It’s a movie that sometimes rises above its pulpy material even while wallowing in it.

"The Crow" has two things going for it: Bill Skarsgård as Eric and the alt-pop singer FKA twigs as Shelly. Though most famous as the grotesque clown Pennywise, from "It," Skarsgård here shows his soulful side as a recovering addict living in an unnamed, dystopian city. Twigs is equally convincing as a young musician on the run from Roeg (Danny Huston), an oligarch with occult powers. (She has dirt on him that could be literally damning.) As Eric and Shelly meet cute in a rehab, then flee and all in drug-fueled love, "The Crow" feels less like a comic-book movie and more like an edgy romance from a hip studio like A24 or Neon.

Those early emotional beats keep us grounded as Eric’s tale grows increasingly preposterous. When he and Shelly are murdered by Roeg’s minions, Eric is brought back from purgatory by Kronos (Sami Bouajila) to avenge their deaths. (A crow will serve as Eric’s spirit animal.) When our hero discovers he can’t die — bullet holes heal, burst guts get sucked back into place — he goes on a killing spree while hunting for Roeg. The action sometimes feels John Wick-ian, but Sanders ("Ghost in the Shell") deserves credit for staging his climactic bloodbath against the tidy elegance of an opera house.

Whether this "Crow" will reinvigorate the dormant franchise (last seen in 2005) remains to be seen. At one point, Eric and Shelly wistfully consider throwing themselves off a bridge. "Do you think angsty teens would build shrines to us?" Eric asks in a rare moment of humor. You know, they just might.

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com@raferguzman