Movie Review: The Raven

Posted by Charmaine Blake on Apr 26th, 2012 in Crime, Suspense, Thriller | 0 comments

Movie Review: The Raven

The Raven is a mystery film starring John Cusack as the world renowned writer Edgar Allan Poe. In this fictional depiction of Edgar Allan Poe, there is a serial killer on the loose. The only catch is: The killer seems to be mimicking Poe’s written works and committing the murders based on it. The Raven will have a wide release on April 27th 2012. Although it can be viewed by audiences a few days later, critics were able to see The Raven and gave their opinion on this thriller movie directed by James McTeigue. Let’s take a look at Roger Moore’s opinion on the movie: The Raven

“John Cusack’s Descend As Edgar Allan Poe

Revisionist look at writer’s final days is fanciful, witty and suspenseful

The image of Edgar Allan Poe passed down to us is that of a dour, pale and morbid drunkard, a poet haunted by lovers who died in his arms. But he was also a playful wordsmith, an eviscerating critic, a man fascinated by cryptography (codes) and fond of dissections.

That’s the Poe of “The Raven,” a fanciful, witty and suspenseful revision of Poe’s last days that is more entertaining than it has any right to be.

Poe wore his hair a little long, and a mustache. But John Cusack gives America’s first great suffering artist an intellectual’s (or pseudo-intellectual’s) goatee, a cape and a lot of swagger, a cross between Lord Byron and Sherlock Holmes. The bottle is ever-present, the debts to his bartenders ever pressing. But not to worry.

“Ill be as flush as a sultan by dawn!”

Another poem, story or review is due to be published by the one Baltimore newspaper that’ll have him. He’s not an easy fellow to tolerate, hurling “Philistine!” and “mental oyster” insults at one and all.

No wonder the two-fisted Captain Hamilton (Brendan Gleeson, in fine fury) refuses to let his daughter (Alice Eve, beguiling as ever) marry this sharp-tongued wastrel. The fair Emily, Poe’s last muse, has other ideas.

Poe may be broke, but he is famous, he insists. He has invented detective fiction and the suspense thriller. Stories such as “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Tell-tale Heart” have ensured his legend, and that poem about the black bird comes to mind every time we see such birds in the dingy skies above 1840s Baltimore (actually, Budapest and Belgrade).

Then, people start dying. A pit and pendulum murder here, a victim possibly walled up in a sewer there. The detective (Luke Evans, in a bland performance) recognizes them. Somebody is imitating the deaths in Poe’s fiction, and Detective Fields is “in dire need of your un-wholesome expertise.” Not that Poe can be of much help

Until the killer, in a way the gambler Poe must appreciate, ups the ante. There’s a kidnapping. Clues among the murder victims will point to the correct story, the way the kidnap victim will die. Poe is trapped in a ticking-clock thriller of his own invention.

Cusack, in the most dashing, least introverted role of his career, is a delight, manic one moment, overwhelmed by regret in the next. “I’ve used up all my tricks,” he sighs, depressed at the killer’s “dreadful metaphors for life without hope, the death without purpose.”

Read the rest of the review at McClatchy-Tribune News Service

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Charmaine Blake loves movies, musical theater listening to music and taking pictures of anything that she finds interesting. She is a voracious reader and writer, and enjoys her time writing for New Movie Launches. Charmaine loves spending time with her pets and currently has a Siberian Husky, a toy poodle and a cat.