The Raven - Prophet des Teufels

I am a big fan in general of "WhoDunnit" movies, and I was keen to see what 'The Raven' had in store. I went in assuming that it would be like any other 'Jack the Ripper'/19th century killer movie and that it would predictable. I was right in my assessment, but inspite of these cliché's the Raven was a brilliant film mainly because of the following:

• The movie was beautifully shot. It has a very 'sleepy hollow' feeling throughout. - The use of Poe's work and the poetic climax was excellent. I enjoyed this bit a lot as it left me with things to think about after watching the film, something which is testimony to the fact that the film made an impact. - Great character development of John Cusack/Poe. Made for a dark, mysterious man with a twisted view of the world. Exciting. - There were many tense moments, great chases and small pieces of puzzle solving( like in console games) making for small mysteries within one large mystery, thus keeping you engrossed all the way.

To summarise, the Raven was riotous ride through Victorian era type settings, keeps you on the egde of your seat, the mini puzzles keep you busy and the plot and character development( Poe) was excellent, Definitely worth a watch and an 8 out of ten for me.

P.S. The film has gore so if you can't stand that, don't watch it. It's not a Hostel or a SAW, but there is gore and blood.

Well, not much to say about this movie really. It's not bad but it's definitely nothing memorable or impressive to watch either. It's all being good and entertaining enough to keep watching but by the end of it you won't feel like you got an awful lot out of the movie.

I think that the biggest problem of the movie is that it's being a very straightforward mystery/thriller, which at the same time also makes it a very standard and formulaic one. Normally I would complain when a movie has too many distractions in it but in this case it most likely wouldn't had harmed this movie. Some more character, or some more different story lines would had perhaps made this movie a more interesting one.

The movie now becomes a bit tiresome after a while. There is not enough variation and the movie just never really manages to become a tense one, with any of its mystery or thriller elements. Who knows, maybe it also was the movie its low budget that prevented it from ever making a real impact and the reason why the movie seems to be lacking the right required type of atmosphere.

A problem of the movie also lies with its main character. No, I'm not saying that John Cusack is a poor actor in this movie but his character simply isn't being a good or interesting enough. There was so much they could had done, after all he plays Edgar Allan Poe in this movie but it feels as if the film-makers were holding back with just about everything and decided to play things safe, making this a very standard and therefore also predictable little movie.

No it's not a horrible movie to watch but just a movie that offers far too little to its viewers.

6/10

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A merging of the life of Edgar Allan Poe, his poetry, the crimes of his stories and a woven, fictional tale of all of the above is "The Raven". In the opening minute, I was ready to knock the film down for missing some of the significant details of The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Except this film isn't trying to faithfully recreate anything, you just have to get interested in a Poe-based detective story.

Yes, it is fairly gruesome. Perhaps more blood and violence than you would typically find in a Poe story, but as the newspaper editor insisted, that's what the people want. That's likely true, but what I like about Edgar Allan Poe's writing is the intelligence, prose and soulfulness that would be hiding amongst all the murderers and dead bodies. Most stories can be deduced to be about something entirely other than just the crimes. That wasn't really the case here, but that's hardly the fault of the film as they are different mediums.

They might not have gotten the underlying meaning, but they did the get the true nature of Poe accurate. His gloomy, brooding obsession with death, women and alcohol. I've always been convinced of John Cusack's aptitude for this role, and contrary to popular belief, he was very good. He was more subdued than most people were probably expecting. No action stunts and no over-the-top dramatics, he just showed how words and his propensity for gin would haunt him. He delivered only a few quick lines of wit, and I'm assuming that was the issue people had. From all that I have read from people wanting Robert Downey, Jr in this role, I'm assuming they have confused the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes with the real-life writer of Poe. All that I can say to that is thank God Cusack never got confused.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has credited Poe as inspiration for the creation of his famous detective. I'm afraid the filmmakers have tried to re-pay the favour and took some action cues from the recent movies. Watching bullets fly through the air really takes away from the few things they did so well.

"The Raven" is a good watch for Poe fans with references to many of his stories and poems and they found great moments to include some of his illustrious and lasting lines. Although I would have liked it more if the movie was just a dramatic recreation of his famous poem, at least Cusack did offer a reading of The Raven which probably mirrored that of Poe himself.

I was not sure what to expect from this film, but seeing as how I could borrow it for free I would watch it. Turns out it was a really good movie as it featured a fine performance from John Cusack as Edgar Allen Poe, a nice kill here and there and a nice mystery to try and unravel. I am surprised that it did not perform better at the theaters as it was a nice change of pace from all the comic book films I usually watch.

The story has Edgar returning to Baltimore at a time a gruesome murder is taking place. One that seems to be a copy of his work "Murders in the Rue Morgue". Other heinous crimes occur, all seeming to be based off Poe's work. Poe becomes the prime suspect, but the investigator on the case soon realizes it is not the troubled author so he soon enlists Poe's help to try and find the person responsible. Unfortunately for Poe, this killer soon brings Poe in directly by kidnapping Poe's beloved and challenges Poe to find her before she dies.

I liked the cat and mouse of the game as the investigator and Poe try to solve the killer's bizarre and twisted clues to learn his identity before it is too late. I was not sure what to expect from the film, but it turned out to be a very dark and a bit of a sad film. John Cusack did great as Poe, but all of the cast did a fine job. They also did a nice job of recreating Baltimore in the time period this film takes place. I am sure if I really looked I could find a mistake or two, but I never really try to look for anachronisms when watching a movie unless it is like totally obvious or the movie is not good.

So all in all a good mystery type movie with some horror elements in it. The best death was a bit early in the film, it being the one that copied the Poe story "The Pit and the Pendulum". None of the other deaths were quite as graphic as it. However, the film's story was good enough that I did not need to see a bunch of over the top brutality.

It's a 6 for me. If you are going to make a fictional movie about a real character I think you should really just go for it, make it original, and use some imagination. Edgar Allen Poe seems like a great character to use as inspiration for a very dark, evil, twisted movie. This wasn't one of those.

Cusack as Poe, was OK, not great, not horrible but just OK. The story is one I have seen a few times before. The whole author writes something, serial killer uses it as a blueprint, suddenly the writer is called in and that was the killers plan all along and it becomes personal. Yawn. There was so much potential for this movie, and they turned it in to a played out old story line.

It wasn't bad. After the first ten minutes I figured the rest was going to be a torture to watch. It did get somewhat better, but never rose above OK.