In the latest attempt to turn historical persons into action figures, director James McTeigue (V for Vendetta, Ninja Assassin) show us just how right you were when you first thought, “That sounds like a bad idea.” Leading the cast (in the role of Edgar Allen Poe) is the legendary John Cusack who is well known for his other action thrillers like Being John Malcovich and High Fidelity. Other cast members include Luke Evans (The Immortals), Alice Eve (She’s Out of My League), and Brendan Gleeson (28 Days Later)
The story, in a nutshell, is this: A crazed serial killer decides to reenact Poe’s greatest murder stories in real life in an attempt to get the author’s attention and admiration. (Aren’t you glad that we now can just use YouTube and Blogs instead of elaborate murder?) After the first few gruesome kills, the police are forced to bring the drunkard Poe into the investigation just in time for Poe’s girlfriend to get kidnapped by the murderer.
Maybe it’s unfair to typecast Cusack and criticize him for reaching outside of his comfort zone, but maybe it isn’t. Cusak’s performance is only one of the many lowlights of the film. In fact, any hairdresser would tell you that if you put in enough brown lowlights, eventually the whole thing is just brown. This film is just that, brown, dull, and with the brief moments of beautiful gore teasing you before dumping you in the monotony of blah to follow. But let’s take things one by one.
The film is polished and slicked up with all the varnish and gloss of Hollywood. Slick passionless camera work barely captures the beautiful streets of Budapest (used to evoke old Baltimore). The acting has all the magic of the word “eh” and the script, which you’d expect to be great in a movie about one of the greatest liturgical minds of American History, is just kind of lame. Even the dialogue which begins rich and almost successful just gives up halfway through, (rest your eyes before watching because they will get a workout with all the rolling they’ll have to do). One can only hope studios will learn from this film and attempt such epically bad ideas “nevermore.”
In looking desperately for something to like about the movie, you’re left with little more than this: at least they didn’t turn him into a karate chopping, muscled, ego-maniac like in Sherlock Holmes, (although, with Downey Jr., Holmes is at least fun.) Cusack’s Poe is basically a loser whose aim is never true, who gets beat up, who barely gets respect, and who is a miserable drunk. But being a loser isn’t enough to connect with the hero of his action flop. The only empathy you feel towards any of the characters is for Poe’s girlfriend, played by Alice Eve, when she’s trapped in a coffin, but you’ll only empathize with her because you’ll feel equally trapped in the confines of the dark theater while this film tortures you with banality.
Rating: Watching The Raven leaves you so tortured you’ll wish you were dead (2/10)
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