Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
A fictionalized account of the last days of Edgar Allan Poe's life, in which the poet is in pursuit of a serial killer whose murders mirror those in the writer's stories.
The Raven has an intriguing high concept — pairing Poe's gothic fiction with a serial killer procedural set in 1840s Baltimore — but the execution is middling. The plot is formulaic once the premise is established, leaning on genre conventions without much surprise, and the ending feels rushed and unsatisfying given the buildup. John Cusack's portrayal of Poe is energetic if uneven, while the supporting cast is serviceable. The period cinematography is competent and atmospheric but rarely transcendent. Novelty gets a slight boost for the creative premise of life imitating Poe's art, which is a genuinely distinctive hook even if the film doesn't fully capitalize on it.