Judged by the right promotional photo of John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe in The Raven, the film is perceived as a good idea. Poe then walks into a bar and starts talking, and one immediately understands why Cusack isn’t known for appearing as men who lived before 1984.
Nothing in his cadence or attitude suggests that the actor has changed much to blend with the 1849 setting.Not that the screenplay, from Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare, gives him any help: Its unconvincing dialogue makes little attempt to capture the idiom of Poe.Like the recent Sherlock Holmes films, The Raven seems content to steal the name of a famous figure and leave authenticity to the set and costume designers.
The conceit takes a tidbit of biographical fact â€" Poe died under mysterious conditions, having been found on the streets in a state of delirium â€" and spins an action-film fantasy to fit it. In this case, the booze-weakened author helps hunt a serial killer he has inspired.
After some grisly killings, whose details come straight from Poe’s fiction, Baltimore detective Emmett Fields (Luke Evans) goes to the author for help.Soon the killer is taunting Poe directly, leaving clues for him at crime scenes and kidnapping the wealthy woman (Alice Eve) he hopes to marry.Although the trappings of each crime refer to Poe’s literature, The Raven owes far more to contemporary serial-killer films. Viewers might find some novelty in trying to predict how The Tell-Tale Heart or The Premature Burial should work their way into the proceedings, with imaginative ties to such classics scarce.
The director, James McTeigue, had much more success capturing the mood of graphic novelist Alan Moore in V for Vendetta than evoking the suspense of Poe. Still, viewed as simply another Hollywood thriller, The Raven builds up a decent head of steam as time runs out for the hero’s imperiled fiancee.
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