James McTeigue attempted to capture the brilliance of morbid author and poet Edgar Allen Poe’s pieces in a suspenseful and intentionally mysterious film. 

However, he only delivered a poor and unintentionally mocking story with a failed manifestation of a writer’s legendary work.

‘The Raven,’ directed by McTeigue (‘The Matrix’), was sort of like a fanfiction come to life. 

Set shortly before the death of Edgar Allen Poe (John Cusack), the story takes place in 19th century Baltimore where continuous, aberrant and macabre murders bear a suspicious resemblance to Poe’s stories, and, in order to catch the murderer, the local detective recruits Poe in hopes of seeing into his mind and, essentially, the murderer’s as well. 

While the general idea of the film was a relatively good idea in theory, a poor plot, cringe-worthy dialogue and low-budget special effects hindered this film greatly from being what it had the potential to be. 

The acting in this film was decent at best. However, it didn’t contribute anything significant to the movie’s cinematic merit. While the film did have continuity, I felt many of the scenes were just thrown together without actual reason; the director could have easily pulled many scenes out of the film without it being a detriment to the plot. 

Considering the fact that Poe was an eccentric man, his horribly theatric dialogue was scarcely excusable although the same cannot be said for the presumably sane characters in the film whose lines felt like they were inspired by a bad soap opera. 

Moreover, because the film was given an R-rating for the morbidity in its murder scenes, it was naturally assumed that the movie would contain relentless gore; instead, the audience was given low-budget CGI that could just as easily be found in a fan-made internet video. 

 

Now, the film did have its characteristics that kept it from being too horrible. The killings inspired by Poe’s work were true to his writing in that they didn’t stray too far from what he had originally written. 

The character development could be said to be fine enough and the actors all, for the most part, had on-screen chemistry with each other. 

As far as post-production and fundamentals, the movie’s score, while nothing particularly spectacular, was decent and fit each scene well enough. 

Because of Edgar Allen Poe’s wide fanbase and the world’s utter fascination with him and his work, ‘The Raven’ had the potential to be one of the most impressive films of the year. 

It had a solid enough cast, a setting that is generally ideal for aesthetically pleasing cinematography and a gripping synopsis; but, unfortunately, it fell flat.