The Raven

No review content available.

I really wanted to like this film, I really did. Something was off, though. Was it the script? Perhaps, although I can't find a clear fault in it. Some of the sophistication of the crimes and of the investigative methods were clearly out of the era, but overall it was OK. The production values were good, the direction was good, the acting was good. The atmosphere was dark and claustrophobic as in Poe's writing. Yet, I didn't quite find the enjoyment I was looking for. The only thing I can think off was John Cusack. He and Alice Eve had no chemistry (and how can you not have it with Alice Eve?!) and the thing I had most trouble believing were not the way the criminal always barely escapes, not the story or the era or the feel of the movie, but that Cusack's character had any feelings at all. He seemed apathetic and occasionally angry. That was it. And that made the film, a good film overall, not be better than average.

A wonderful, macabre film, a la Shakespeare In Love, could be made from Edgar Allan Poe's work and life. The Raven, which uses his work in a serial killer investigation film, ain't it. The basic idea is modestly clever: a serial killer in 1849 Baltimore is murdering people using scenarios from Poe's stories. A police detective recognizes the pattern and pulls in the writer to help in the investigation. Not a bad idea had it been developed in an intelligent or witty way, like Time After Time or Shakespeare In Love. Instead it becomes a random hash of "clues" that have no consistent sense. Cusack, though he looks much healthier and in better shape than he has in years, is miscast as Poe. Although Poe as written: a horse-galloping, Colt .45 wielding hero, would be hard to play for anyone. (At the stage of his life depicted in the film Poe was in fact a deathly ill alcoholic in his last days.)Luke Evans, who plays the police detective Fields, is a ruggedly attractive void on the screen; Alice Eve as Poe's lover is bountifully beautiful and also a void; Brendan Gleeson plays her disapproving father as...very disapproving. Stick around for the end credits, though. They seem to arrive from a different film altogether and I swear that's Willie Nelson singing over a Nine Inch Nails musical backing. Very odd but it will help lift you out of your chair and the theater itself.

Great and interesting concept but a little below my expectations. I admire Poe's writing and biography yet this film did not abide by it. Edgar Allan Poe( who suffered loss of loved ones, loneliness and depression)did not reflect completely on John Cusack's interpretation of the role. In the film The character was half drunk, did criticized but there was a "humorous vibe" that threw me off pertaining to the Horror and thriller genre and Poe's personality. There was no moment in the film where the tormented, bipolar and dark Poe appeared. Also the movie did not make me think in the sense that every time they found a crime the film immediately pointed out the story or poem, as a matter of fact it only took the first crime for the Detective to figure out that the murder was a reenactment of Poe's story, but according to the film itself Poe was not famous or even recognized. I did enjoy the relationship between Poe and Fields, It was interesting in the sense of the change from suspect to friend, from untrusted to relying on each other.Also the art direction and Costume design. The ball where "The mask of the red Death" was depicted was impressive and very detailed as well as Poe's town and the killers "lair." The movie is visually striking, emulating historical costumes and setting, but the story lack consistency. It was a wonderful and thoughtful ending to a defective and lacking plot due to failures in character developments ( not counting detective fields). Like previous reviews on this film I would compare it to Sherlock Holmes, but I would of rather it parallel with Se7en directed by David Fincher, it had the potential.