Thursday, October 18, 2012

THE RAVEN (2012)

Mildly (very mildly) entertaining story about Edgar Allan Poe's last days.  Although Edgar's true cause of death is unknown, the common consensus among scholars is he died of a sickness (cholera, tuberculosis, heart disease, terminal butt cancer) complicated by decades of hard drinking and hard living.  But no, those scholars are dumb poopiepants because Edgar Allan Poe's true cause of death was: fighting a serial killer!  And not just any boring serial killer, but one who based his crimes on the writings of one Edgar Allan Poe. 

Baltimore 1849.  The police are summoned to the apartment of a screaming woman.  The door locks from the inside as they arrive, but once they bust the door down they find the room unoccupied save for two dead bodies.  After some investigation they find the window only appears to be nailed shut, but it's actually spring loaded...just like in one of the stories of the local drunk, Edgar Allan Poe.  Stuff happens and the coppers enlist the help of Poe.  Even more stuff happens and Poe's hot fiance is kidnapped by the killer.  Shit just got real...or so you would hope, but in reality there's just a bunch of running around and shouting.  It looks good (I guess), but it's not very entertaining.

Okay acting, not very thrilling action scenes, boring mystery solving, no emotional attachment to the characters, lots of darkly lit scenes, lame ending.  Not really worth watching, unless you're extremely bored.  If you need me, I'll be in my room reading Robert McMammon's "Matthew Corbett" series.