Review of The Raven (2012) by Nathan B — 09 Dec 2012

When I saw the trailers for this film earlier in the year I was fairly excited, the idea of a man using Edgar Allan Poe's work to murder and catch the attention of the author caught my eye. It's not an original idea but how often is there in this day in age.

In all actuality John Cusack could very well have played a man with the same quirks and just been a fan of Poe's and we would have had a similar result. Case in point only a couple times do we see a brutal killing, which I was under the belief that we would see more of, and actually we usually just see the victims after not during their murder.

Anyways Poe is a man that doesn't have much money to his name but he is in love with a girl named Emily (played by Alice Eve) that seems to have more than enough. Well shortly after they decide to get married the murders become more and more frequent and Detective Fields (Luke Evans) calls in Poe since this mysterious murderer is using Poe prose for considerably evil means.

What doesn't really make sense is why is the villain doing all this, even after watching the film there wasn't any clear motive other than he was a fan of Poe's work. And for being almost 2 hour long this movie felt surprisingly short, I do believe pacing had something to do with that.

Acting wasn't too bad but Alice Eve was really underused, but once you watch the movie her character could do literally nothing for most of it. John Cusack and Luke Evans put in good work but the other characters with less screen time didn't really seem to try too hard.

And I know this was taking place in the 1840's but did no one have accents anymore by that time? Everyone was speaking with clear English it was just a minor thought in my head but maybe I'm wrong.

All things considered this movie did manage to catch my attention even if the movie has many shortcomings. This movie will appeal to those with a dramatic taste in movies.