“The Raven” is the title of, perhaps, Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous literary piece. In the film of the same title, John Cusack takes on the role of the troubled poet, but is cast in a completely different light than the real man himself. While the movie is named after one of Poe’s works individually, it aims to incorporate the bulk of his famous poems into a plot that has a serial killer executing victims in the same manner as they die in the poems. Conceptually, it sounds very intriguing -if not a little redundant, as many works of film have done this or something like it, i.e. the television show “Castle” or David Fincher’s “Se7en.”
With more than ample source material, director James McTeigue and screenplay writers Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare could have delved deep into the psyche of one of America’s greatest and most profound writers, but decided to keep a more approachable work of fiction, presumably to get audiences involved a little easier. John Cusack does a decent job at portraying this Poe, although his character goes from drunk and disturbed to a fully-functional detective without hesitation, which takes away some believability -an issue not so much with his talent as with the writing. Luke Evans does a decent supporting job as well, playing the determined Detective Fields and Alice Eve is Poe’s forbidden love who becomes the main plot-point as the film progresses.
As the film begins, it noticeably takes influence from “Sherlock Holmes,” starring Robert Downey Junior as an eccentric version of another historic piece of literature, and in so-doing left a feeling that “The Raven” was going to pull greatly from it. The Edgar Allan Poe portrayed in the film does remind me of Downey’s Holmes in more ways than one; his attitude is cynical and over the top, all while offering humorous one-liners to keep audiences entertained as much as it could, but ultimately doesn’t deliver quite like “Holmes” did as I found only once did I or anyone else laugh out loud. Perhaps what was most disappointing was the fact that the premise of the film is supposed to have a serial killer reenacting Poe’s works, but it sails over the murders in the first act and surprisingly doesn’t give them a second thought, leaving the rest of the film to focus on simply finding the killer before striking again. This is a shame because the film could have offered a much darker and more involving tale if these details were explored and if Poe’s character was examined better.
Final Opinion
It isn’t all bad. “The Raven” does keep audiences engaged, but doesn’t deliver as the stylish and inventive film it was marketed to be, rather it was a film that employs a tired premise, includes an underdeveloped story and a style that was so obviously shop-lifted from other works. John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe was fun and entertaining, but that wasn’t enough to take the focus off of the movie’s other faults and I couldn’t help but compare his acting here to other roles he’s played, leaving this Poe to be more Cusack-y than anything. Give the movie a rent when it comes out on DVD/Blu-Ray, but if the lack of audience that was found on opening weekend is any indicator of its merit, you won’t be pining for more.
