Starring: John Cusack, Alice Eve, Luke Evans
Directed by: James McTeigue

So today, on a cold windy day, I’ve decided to hit the mall to check out, “The Raven”. Being the big Edgar Allan Poe nut, I had to see this film for myself. Here is my review:

The film is set in Baltimore, Maryland, in the 19th century. There is a serial killer on the loose, taking victims and killing them as inspired from, Edgar Allen Poe’s fictional stories. Of course, Edgar, is being framed for these murders, so he tries to hunt down the killer himself, so he can save the love of his life, Emily.

A lot of critics gave this film bad reviews, but did they see the same movie, I did? I thought it was a pretty good one, actually. Not the best movie ever made, but I thought it was entertaining and a good enough homage to, Edgar Allan Poe.

This is NOT a biopic movie. This movie is totally fictional, mostly. The only true part of the film was Edgar’s death at the end of the movie (not a spoiler ’cause everyone knows how Edgar mysteriously died).

I look at this movie, “The Raven”, as a tribute to the late and great writer. That’s all it is. Giving a tribute of his most famous work everything from, “The Pit & the Pendulum”, to “The Tell Tale Heart” to “The Premature Burial”, and of course, throughout the film, there are tons of Edgar Allan Poe references from his poems & stories.

I thought John Cusack, made a pretty good Poe. I was pretty impressed with him. Honestly, I’m not that big of a John Cusack fan either. The only other movie I liked with him in it, was, “Being John Malkovich”. I’m just not a big fan of Cusack, but he made you feel like Poe is still alive.

I was also impressed with the cinematography and the costume design. The film was pretty dark. The film had quite a lot of gore too and actually got kind of creepy at times, too. Throughout the film, they tried to not reveal who the serial killer was, they kept it secret, but it was too predictable on who the serial killer was. I had a pretty good guess since the film first started.

Even if the writing was weak at some parts and the acting wasn’t that great, I thought it was an alright movie. This is one of those movies I will watch only once and never watch it again. I don’t think I’ll be buying it on DVD/Bluray.

Hopefully, when Sly decides to do his version of the Edgar Allan Poe story, he’ll make it a biopic film and tells the story about Edgar’s real life, and not bring any fiction into any of it. I’m sure Sly’s version will be different than this version.

Score for “The Raven” = ** (2 stars as in “okay”)

Kev