Rated
R (Bloody Violence and Grisly Images)
Running
Time: 1 Hour & 51 Minutes
Cast-
John
Cusack-Edgar Allan Poe
Luke
Evans-Detective Emmett Fields
Alice
Eve-Emily Hamilton
Brendan
Gleeson-Captain Hamilton
Kevin
McNally-Maddux
Oliver
Jackson-Cohen-John Cantrell
Sam
Hazeldine-Ivan Reynolds
Jimmy
Yuill-Captain Eldridge
Directed
by James McTeigue
 |
| Edgar Allan Poe...action hero! |
‘And
the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting / On the pallid
bust of Pallas just above my chamber door / And his eyes have all the seeming of
a demon's that is dreaming / And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his
shadow on the floor / And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on
the floor / Shall be lifted—nevermore!’ The following is the last stanza of The Raven, a narrative poem written 167
years ago in 1845 by Edgar Allen Poe, an American author and poet who is now
famous for his macabre tales of mystery and is considered by many to be the
inventor of the detective fiction genre. Poe is one of my favorite authors to
read in literature class as I find the darkly violent tone that his short
stories exude to be incredibly compelling. Although Poe became an instant
household name thanks to the success of The
Raven, the poem failed to bring him any significant financial success and
the author continued to spend much of his life barely scraping by to make a
living. He also passed away at the early age of 40 on October 7, 1849 with the
cause of death remaining a total mystery even to this day. Whatever happened
does not matter because Poe is now widely considered to be one of the most
important figures in American literature, a status I believe that he would be
proud of. You can also add ‘amateur detective’ to that mix thanks to the
release of director James McTeigue’s “The Raven”, a film that has absolutely nothing to do with the poem its named
after but is actually a fictionalized account of the final days of Poe’s life.
Besides the endless barrage of sequels, prequels, and remakes, Hollywood has
now taken to re-imagining historical figures for the masses, a trend that
continues in this summer’s “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” from Timur
Bekmambetov and producer Tim Burton. While there are some guilty pleasures to
be had with “The Raven” thanks to its dark gothic visuals and bloody violence,
the film ultimately collapses under the weight of its clunky script with a climax
that proves to be unsatisfactory.
Taking place in nineteenth century Maryland
ten days before the sudden death of Edgar Allen Poe (John Cusack), Inspector
Emmett Fields (Luke Evans) arrives in Baltimore to investigate a gruesome
double murder and discovers the crime bears a resemblance to Poe’s 1841 short
story The Murders in the Rue Morgue.
Meanwhile, a nearly penniless Poe bursts into a tavern to have a drink but the
owner throws him out when he refuses to pay and causes a loud disturbance. The
author’s stories and poems have not been published for some time, leaving him
with no source of income. Poe has also fallen in love with the beautiful Emily
Hamilton (Alice Eve) but her wealthy father (Brendan Gleeson) loathes his
presence so much that he threatens the eccentric author with violence if he
does not stop harassing his daughter. The serial killer strikes again sometime
later and murders a literary critic named Griswold by slicing his body in half
with a large swinging blade based upon The
Pit and the Pendulum. Fields has Poe brought to his office and after
determining that he cannot be the murderer, proposes that he volunteers his
services to solve the mystery. Intrigued by the killer and having nothing
better to do, Poe agrees to lend his assistance to the police. At the crime
scene where Griswold was killed, Fields recovers a demonic red mask, a
reference to The Masque of the Red Death,
and Poe deduces that the murderer will strike again at the upcoming masquerade
ball that happens to be held by Captain Hamilton. Despite the presence of
Field’s undercover officers, the killer manages to kidnap Emily at the ball and
issues a challenge: using clues left at each crime scene, Poe will write a new
story that will blend fact with fiction in a warped attempt to be the author’s
muse. Left with no choice, Poe agrees to do this while Fields races against
time to bring the killer to justice and rescue Emily.
As mentioned before, Poe
is one of my favorite American authors and I approached “The Raven” with a
cautious optimism. I enjoyed McTeigue’s directorial debut film “V for Vendetta”
in 2006, based upon the late-1980’s comic book mini-series of the same name
written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd but unfortunately, his
latest film failed to meet my modest expectations. The script written by Ben
Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare is cobbled together from other (better)
thrillers and desperately tries to be like a nineteenth century version of
“Se7en” with its Jack the Ripper-like serial killer but the entire affair lacks
any sense of imagination or even passion from McTeigue, whose style is
workmanlike. Still, the film held my interest as I enjoyed all the references
to Poe’s work, some of it obscure, although the stories chosen appear to be
randomly cherry-picked by the writers without any thought to thematic
coherence. However, “The Raven” collapses during the climax and the identity of
the serial killer proves to be severely underwhelming as the character just
pops up randomly in one scene and is revealed to be the murderer five minutes
later. The idea of a thriller with Poe at the center has potential but the
writers never take advantage of this and settle for conventionality. There are a few bright spots in the film such
as McTeigue’s attention to detail in bringing nineteenth century Baltimore to
life. The dark gothic visuals seemed to have leaped out of the pages of a Poe
short story, although the numerous CG ravens flying about tend to be a bit
much. There’s also plenty of blood and gore as we’re treated to extreme
close-ups of severed heads and stuffed corpses. The pendulum scene is extremely
grotesque yet visceral but this is ultimately blood for blood’s sake as it adds
nothing significant to the film.
As Edgar Allen Poe, John Cusack takes a page
out of Nicholas Cage and Robert Downey Jr. that flip-flops from twitchy
eccentricity to off-the-rails psychotic. Cusack often flies into
scenery-chewing mode but he strangely remains compelling as the tortured artist
who just wants some recognition despite the fact that this is a paycheck role
for him. The writers also saw filled Poe’s dialogue with complex vocabulary but
like the blood and gore, it once again adds little to the proceedings. Luke
Evans is fine as the grim inspector but the rest of the cast play one-note
characters that function as little more than mouth-pieces for plot exposition.
The beautiful Alice Eve spends much of the film trapped in a coffin while Brendan
Gleeson and Kevin McNally are underutilized.
“The Raven” was released on April
27, 2012 to largely negative reviews with 21%
on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics derided it as ‘thinly scripted, unevenly acted, and
overall preposterous, [the film] disgraces the legacy of Edgar Allen Poe with a
rote murder mystery that's more silly than scary.’ It was originally set to be
released back in March but was pushed forward to April, probably to avoid
competition from “The Hunger Games.” However, opening the film just one week
before the highly-anticipated “The Avengers” proved to be a mistake as it
flopped at the box office with a paltry $7.3 million in seventh place during opening weekend. Fortunately, the production
budget was only $26 million and Relativity Media purchased the rights for $4
million so it should recoup its costs but profit should not be expected. While
“The Raven” is not as bad as the critics made it out to be, the film remains an
underwhelming experience that liberally borrows from better thrillers and the
workmanlike approach only makes it worse. Edgar Allen Poe would be shouting
‘NEVERMORE!’ as he rolls around in his grave.
Final
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
“No
matter how this ends I will kill him.”
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