Friday, May 4, 2012

The Raven

Quoth the raven....nevermore. A fantastic and chilling line from Edgar Allan Poe's timeless haunting classic The Raven. Edgar Allan Poe was a poet who was not afraid to show his dark outlook on life. He would write the horrors that the people dreamt of and the fears we all have inside us. The film The Raven starring John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe puts a modern spin on this classic writers life. Now my readers should remember this is a work of fiction with some true facts about Poe's life mixed in. The Raven takes place during the later years of Poe's life after he ha written most of his famous works. The film starts with a down in his luck Edgar Allan Poe wandering the streets of Baltimore alone and drunk. Hardly anyone knows who he is and no one will publish him because he is not writing stories but reviews of other people's work.

One night a murder is committed in Baltimore and Detective Fields, played by Luke Evans, is called on the case. This murder seems familiar and creates a sense of Duja Vu with Fields. He realises that it is a gruesome killing right out of one of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe. Fields calls on Edgar for his unholy knowledge in the tale and in turn the case. More murders start to turn up and the city of Baltimore is in chaos as the killer uses Poe as inspiration.


The film is by far Bloody, disturbing and gruesome. At one point I even had to look away because the blood was so intense...but still well done. I never pictured Poe's stories as clean and fluffy but this movies brings their true darkness to form. The costuming of this film is beautiful and haunting. The masks in the ball scene are amazing and I seriously want to now have a masked ball around Halloween. The coats in this movie fly about like capes and like the wings of a raven.


The colors of the movie are so drastic from one another. The film itself is very dark tones, lots of blacks and greys. Even scene during the day have a heavy fog that suffocate the characters. The character of Emily, played by the stunning Alice Eve, wears alot of lite blue and white. Poe and Fields wear black coats with white shirts, very dark with their dark features. I think the reason the death scenes are also to effective is the use of the color red. It stands out so much and is disturbing in this world of blue and black. The vivid red of blood splattered across the screen intensifies the feeling of terror and dread.


The acting in this film was very real and disturbed, I mean that in the best possible way. Cusack is disturbing, witty, and emotional as the torn and lost Poe. He is a man that life has treated so cruelly and he managed to continue on. He is finally allowing himself to love again and all hell breaks loose. Cusack goes from angry drunk to lost lover at the spill of a drop of blood. I enjoyed his performance very much and I feel like he will not get the recognition he deserves.


Luke Evans is stunning and charming as the lovely Detective Fields. He is trying so hard to prove himself but has the passion of a normal man. I wish he would have been on screen more, his acting is so real that you forget he is acting. You think that Luke Evans IS Detective Fields! I am very excited to see how far his career will go because the man just drips with pure raw talent.


I really enjoyed the film but I was a very big fan of the ending....not the end....I thought it ended rather well but the build up to the end was disappointing. I think part of that was my own personal desire for the film not to end. The film is action packed and if you are a Poe fan you will be very entertained. The movie slides in little hints about the short stories written by Poe and if you know his stories you will not be disappointed. You will also never read The Pit and The Pendulum the same way again!




Action: yes
Adventre: A little
Puzzles....YES

Over all: B+

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