The Raven (2012)
I'm a fan of both Edgar Allan Poe and John Cusack, so to have Cusack play Poe should automatically rocket this to the top of my favorite movies list. Unfortunately, the movie is a huge mess. Poe is enlisted to help the police solve a series of gruesome murders inspired by his work, and while that could make for a fun Grand Guignol horror show along the lines of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, the movie takes itself much too seriously to be any fun.
Cusack is more engaged with the material than might be expected given much of his recent output, but what this movie really needs is someone with the sensibility of Vincent Price, who could play the lunatic material at hand with a measure of glee that would go a long way toward making it more entertaining. It's pitched as a nineteenth century Seven when it would benefit greatly from more of an Abominable Dr. Phibes or Theatre of Blood kind of vibe.
The supporting cast is good, led by Luke Evans as the detective on the case, though the movie could have used more of Brendan Gleeson, but really what movie couldn't? As for the Grand Guignol aspect, there's a distracting reliance on CGI that pulls you right out of it to the point where I wish that if they couldn't have embraced practical effects they should have just gone in the other direction and let it be PG-13. CGI has its place and when it's used well it's just another tool at a filmmakers disposal, but when it's used like this it's distracting at best and cartoony at worst. Honestly, it might have helped the disturbing tone they were going for if the gore had been implied rather than explicit, the explicit gore belongs in a bigger, sillier movie (or at least a movie that's able to embrace its silliness). Ultimately, it's all weightless and hollow where it could be pulpy and fun. A wasted opportunity.
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