Watch without any expectations, Cusack will entertain you.

I think this movie is better than anyone will admit, but because the idea for the movie is so good, the resulting film is a letdown.

So poorly conducted -- McTeigue seems suffocated by the script and can't even deliver his well-known stylish tricks --, that there is not even a decent climax here: I was like, "is this really going to end like this?". Lifeless picture with some interesting production values -- Alice Eve included. That's it.

Unfortunately mired by an unusually weak ending. Though I will praise Luke Evans for giving the movie an unlikely heart in the form of Detective Fields, and the eventual protagonist-killer confrontation is one of the better I've seen. That being said it is a shame that McTeigue, even when dealing with gothic litterature, couldn't resist the use of slow-motion.

i watched it and i didn't complain, but there wasn't anything here that i was actually thrilled by. by the time two days went by i had completely forgotten i had seen this movie.

The Raven is an awful film. Almost nothing works, from the uninspired plot, static and one-dimensional characters, a lack of actual intrigue in regards to the murders, and a complete lack of desire to use the main character for anything other than as a bystander. This is a boring thriller that sheds no light on Edgar Allan Poe, and will just make his fans shake their head in frustration. It'll do that with non-fans, too, and will make you want to be a character in one of his stories by the end.

Most of the points I'm giving are for its cool 1800s urban settings, reminiscent of Guy Ritchie's recent Sherlock Holmes films. The story, however, doesn't work. Just barely missing catching the killer and him getting away is only interesting so many times, and the final reveal of the solution to the movie's mystery had me going less "Wow, awesome!" and more "Ok, sure, whatever."

A clever concept, but the execution is dull and lifeless.

"Nevermore", indeed.

Hm. Interested by the dislike for this movie. I thought Cusack's portrayal of Poe was exquisite and the reveal of the killer was done with care. I do believe that the method in which the killer "gets away" is rather... well, silly. He just... walks away. So yeah, Moriarty he ain't, but Moriarty he didn't have to be. Very very good performances I thought, though, from Cusack as Poe to Evans as Fields. It doesn't jerk you around with constant tiring twists that plague this genre. Worth seeing.

The Raven isn't as horrible as the reviews might have you believe, but it's nothing really noteworthy. It has a great concept, but the execution is mediocre.

"While full of welcome gore and blood spatter, it's bankrupt of any creative spark." - Jaime N. Christley

Not a bad movie overall, but the ending was really week, and I wasn't really attached to the characters by the end of the movie. I wished there was a little bit more from Poe's stories, but his themes were there, and a couple of his famous stories were present.

very good john was great 10 out of 10

I'm surprise how good this was compared to the reviews. I thought the suspense and ties to Poe in the script, which I would call macabre rather than Gothic, were well done. It was fiction but that part worked a well even the ending which has been criticized as shallow. Damn, what do you have to do, sacrifice the director's virgin daughter on an alter in a Louisiana swamp?

There were parts of this that really annoyed me and the ending rubbed me the wrong way, but for the most part, I liked this. Excellent concept and the script does a great job of working Poe's stories into the plot. Cusack is a hell of a lot of fun as Poe. The reveal of the killer is lame though, because he's such a minor character that it fails to leave much of an impact.

This would have been way better had it starred the entire starting lineup of the Baltimore Ravens, kind of like Act of Valor.