A fictionalized account of the last days of Edgar Allan Poe's life, in which the poet pursues a serial killer whose murders mirror those in the writer's stories.
McTeigue lets the story drag in the second half, with one too many chases down cobbled streets as the shadowy killer gets away in the nick of time. Hardly a fitting epitaph, you might think, to a writer of Poe’s stature.
Besides being an author, Edgar Allan Poe was one of the most vicious, merciless critics of his age. He would not have let this get past him without skewering its shortcomings with a barbed quill.
The result, alas, is as implausible as the stars’ gleaming choppers. Who knew they had such great dentistry in 1840s Baltimore?
Screen hokum gets no hokier.
Cusack is fine as Poe but let down by a routine script that doesn’t conjure up a character of great intrigue.
Dull, tedious thriller that manages to say nothing interesting or new about Poe.
The result is either a downmarket take-off of Se7en or an upmarket take-off of Saw; I’m not sure which is worse.
It runs out of steam in the final 10 minutes, but there's some gruesome drama and Cusack is on decent form.
Wrong bird.
Agony [to watch].
Luckily, the producers realised how viewers would respond after watching The Raven: Nevermore!
Moderately entertaining.
It’s shot in the mix-mastered style of the recent Sherlock Holmes TV series, but you’d still need to be pretty weak and weary to sit through this.
While never coming close to creating the sort of lasting, macabre masterpiece that Poe is more commonly associated with, The Raven is still worth a look.
James McTeigue
John Cusack tackles Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe's stranglehold on popular culture
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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