Baltimore, 1849, just days before the death of Edgar Allan Poe (under mysterious circumstances), a mother and daughter are found murdered in their locked apartment with apparently no escape route for the killer. A spring-loaded window leads Detective Fields (Luke Evans) to connect the brutal murders with a familiar story, one written by Mr. Poe. At first, Poe is a suspect due to his intimate knowledge of the crime, but a second murder (from “The Pit and the Pendulum”) forces the police to bring Poe, who is credited with writing the first detective story, into the case to help solve the crimes. (An interesting note: the character killed by the pendulum was a real-life adversary of Poe who actually wrote Poe’s obituary for the New York Tribune, and proceeded to destroy Poe’s reputation after his death with lies of drug addiction and forged letters!) Poe’s own romantic entanglement with the daughter of Captain Hamilton (Brendan Gleeson), who despises Poe, gets even more complicated as the killer kidnaps Emily (Alice Eve) and continues to play a cat-and-mouse game with Poe and the police with the assistance of Poe’s stories. But who is the killer and what is the end game?
The Raven borrows its look and style, heavily, from the recent Sherlock Holmes films. If Holmes can be reborn for a new generation, why can’t Poe? As a Baltimore native with some knowledge of Poe’s life and death, it was a little difficult to divorce the reality from the fictional creation in the film, but the writers have taken care to mix in just enough fact with fancy so that it doesn’t become entirely implausible. I mean, if Abraham Lincoln can be a vampire hunter, then Poe can certainly be a 19th century, crime solving action hero. At least the movie doesn’t take place in the modern era, because seeing your hometown on the screen is very distracting when they get it wrong (and the movie was not shot anywhere near Baltimore, but some of the architecture does have a local flavor).
The plot cleverly interweaves the most horrific elements of Poe’s stories with the “real life” crimes committed by the killer, who also interjects his own flourishes (which Poe angrily brushes off as plagiarism), and some Poe historians may appreciate the reveal of the killer’s name and its actual connection to Poe. The film, which takes place for the most part (appropriately) at night, looks gorgeous with its warm, but muted color palette, and the script is engaging once the story gets rolling. I had some concerns with the first fifteen minutes or so because some of the acting was loud and over-the-top, and it almost had the feel of a basic cable, made-for-television movie. But with the puzzling first murders, the film settled into its gripping story, nicely avoiding some of the more action-oriented style of Guy Ritchie‘s Holmes films.
The cast, for the most part, does an admirable job. John Cusack plays a more robust version of Poe, more of a functioning alcoholic than the frail, sickly author of fact. At times, he does seem to be channeling Robert Downey, Jr., but, again, this really isn’t a film that allows one to quibble with facts. It’s more of a romantic notion to imagine Poe spending his last days trying to save his fiancee’s life (also fictional), and Cusack’s Poe is certainly someone you want and need to root for. Luke Evans’ Fields is very straight-laced and stalwart, and takes no guff from anyone, while Alice Eve has to make Emily charming enough for the audience to want Poe to find her before it’s too late. Luckily, she does just that, even though she spends the bulk of her screen time buried alive. Gleeson and Kevin McNally (from the Pirates of the Caribbean series) sometimes ham it up and chew on the scenery a little too much, but they become more tolerable as the film progresses. The only two quibles I have are: the killer is almost a little too easily identified long before the reveal because of a just-too-obvious performance, and the writers seem to be setting up the story for a sequel involving another author, but left this viewer disappointed with what seemed like a rather final end scene … which is a shame because I loved director James McTeigue‘s V for Vendetta, and his visual style in both of these films, so I would have liked to have seen another chapter in this story. As it is, The Raven is very entertaining if you can get past the whole fact vs fiction aspect of the story, and you don’t mind a little blood and guts along the way (the pendulum scene is particularly, and surprisingly, gruesome). Unlike Poe’s raven, I would not say “nevermore” to another chapter of this serial.
Clacked by Chuck Duncan 
on Apr 27, 2012 @ 07:15 EST5EDT
