The Raven, named after but having nothing to do with the famous Edgar Allan Poe poem, is a murder mystery thriller portraying the poet and a police detective, attempting to solve a string of brutal and gory murders in Baltimore. The perpetrator recreates famous murders from Poe's writings, and leaves clues for him with each murder pointing to the location of his kidnapped sweetheart, the daughter of a rich Baltimore socialite.
Movies based on real historical figures have created a new genre in Hollywood, with the Sherlock movies and Abraham Lincoln-starrer Vampire Hunter being the most recent.
The Raven follows the final days of Edgar Allan Poe’s life portraying the 40 year old author as a desperate broke artist, whose work is appreciated, but doesn't pay his bills (pretty much what happened in real life). As the reluctant hero, Edgar saves his sweetheart, but loses his life in the bargain - again, in circumstances pretty close to whatever has been documented and known about his real demise.
The weakness of the movie is that it simply presents murder after grissly murder, without letting the tension build up, without any intelligent analysis, without the thrill of a murder chase. There is plently of gore, but it fails to pull in the audience. And the darkness doesn't help much.
Needed to watch the movie in multiple parts, because at night, it was too much of an effort to stay away and tuned in.
The cast is OK, but pretty one dimensional. The sound track was good, though... and for me, the highlight of the movie.
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