Category: the raven

Edgar Allan Poe is imagined as an action hero in a shrill, bloody mystery.

Befitting a film about Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven” is dark and grisly and ghoulish. But it also has qualities that Poe’s work never does:  It’s dull and mechanical and, most of all, phony.  With characters who never seem alive, a plot that never feels clever, stakes that never grip you, and irredeemably weak stabs at horror, tension, and humor, it plays like the first draft of a modestly cool concept, not a finished, polished product.

John Cusack, who, goateed, bares a passing resemblance to the real Poe, plays the great, neglected, alcoholic writer in his final days, when Baltimore is plagued by a madman who kills people in imitation of Poe’s stories.  When the fiend kidnaps Poe’s beloved (Alice Eve), the writer joins forces with the police to rescue her.

Director James McTeigue showed real flair in his debut, “V for Vendetta,” but this film is based on much weaker source material, and his visual embellishments feel perfunctory.  The script is filled with expository dialogue, and you can’t tell from the actors’ approaches either what century they think they’re in or what tone it’s all meant to bear.  Cusack is especially guilty, throwing energies around willy-nilly as if unsure whether to play for laughs, terror or dry irony.  It doesn’t finally matter, as there’s so little in the film worth taking any attitude toward whatsoever.
 
(110 min., R, multiple locations) Grade: C-minus