I think with or without Edgar Allan Poe this would still be a
really bad movie. I find it difficult to come up with anything that really stood
out to me as original. Basically, everyone has seen this movie before -- except
this time Edgar Allan Poe happens to be a character in the story.
All of the fun in The Raven comes from those moments where the story becomes too silly to take seriously. Take for example one of the film's chase scenes: we have the police and Edgar Allan Poe hunting down the murderer. Never for a second would I have guessed that this sequence would end with Poe riding horseback, shooting his pistol like a hero from an old western. Scenes like this are so unintentionally ridiculous that it's hard not to be a little entertained.
I also kept having to remind myself that John Cusack is playing Edgar Allan Poe. The character is never believable or interesting at all. It's almost as if the other actors on screen were calling John Cusack "Poe" all the time as a way to constantly remind the audience that Edgar Allan Poe is a character in this movie.
All of the fun in The Raven comes from those moments where the story becomes too silly to take seriously. Take for example one of the film's chase scenes: we have the police and Edgar Allan Poe hunting down the murderer. Never for a second would I have guessed that this sequence would end with Poe riding horseback, shooting his pistol like a hero from an old western. Scenes like this are so unintentionally ridiculous that it's hard not to be a little entertained.
I also kept having to remind myself that John Cusack is playing Edgar Allan Poe. The character is never believable or interesting at all. It's almost as if the other actors on screen were calling John Cusack "Poe" all the time as a way to constantly remind the audience that Edgar Allan Poe is a character in this movie.
I admit that removing the Poe gimmick would make some of the
scenes less (unintentionally) funny. However, I'm not sure that my enjoyment
level would change all that much. There just isn't enough in this movie to
really keep me interested.
No comments:
Post a Comment