Raven, The

Released by: Fox
Released on: October 9, 2012.
Director: James McTeigue
Cast: John Cusack, Alice Eve, Luke Evans, Brendan Gleeson, Kevin McNally
Year: 2012
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The Movie:

Directed by James McTeigue, 2012's The Raven stars John Cusack as Edgar Allen Poe who, when the film begins, is in a park in Baltimore sitting under a tree holding a raven. We immediately flash back to a scene where he bursts into a local watering hole and tries to coerce the tavern owner to let him drink for free that night, noting that he'll pay him back - he's Edgar Allen Poe after all, how could he not be good for it?

From here we meet Henry Maddox (Kevin McNally), Poe's editor, who wants to see him make a return to form by writing more of the horror fiction that he used to earn his name in the first place. When a police officer named Emmett Fields (Luke Evans) discovers two women murdered at a crime scene with connections to Poe's work, the writer finds himself at the top of the list of suspects but when another murder occurs shortly thereafter, Fields realizes the killer is obviously still at large. From here, he teams up with Poe to roam the streets of the Baltimore of the mid 1800s to catch the killer. The stakes are raised when the maniac kidnaps a beautiful young woman (Alice Eve) who the pair must save at any cost.

First things first, The Raven looks great. Never having travelled back in time to the Baltimore of the mid eighteen hundreds it's hard to attest to the authenticity of the film's look with any certainty but historically accurate or not, this is a location shrouded in dark mystery. Shadows seem to overwhelm the place and there's a gloomy atmosphere fitting of Poe's material hanging over most of the locations where the story plays out.

Where the film falters, really, is in the premise. Okay, so a well meaning cop has to team up with a writer of mystery and horror to crack a case that has ties to said writer's work. Fine. That works. But if you're going to go that route, go that route with some enthusiasm. Instead, what we get is Poe being played more like Sherlock Holmes than as Poe. Yes, his drinking is a factor here and there but not to the extent that it seems to have been in real life, given the work that documents the real Poe's exploits with a bottle. Poe, well played here by Cusack who admittedly turns out to be a far better casting choice than anyone would probably have guessed (his age works in his favor here, he's no longer the eighties romantic comedy king he once was), has moments of sorrow and sadness but never really bottoms out the way he probably needs to in order to convince.

The visuals are great, the murder set pieces decent enough and Alice Eve plenty easy on the eyes but this winds up lacking much of anything, save for the references here and there to the author's body of work, to make this movie about Poe a movie involving Poe.

Video/Audio/Extras:

The Raven arrives on Blu-ray in a very nice looking AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 2.40.1. The film is a very dark one, much of it takes place indoors in dimly lit interiors or outside in the thick of night, but the well encoded disc handles this well, providing solid black levels and good shadow detail. Some minor crush can be spotted but colors are well reproduced here though it should be noted that as you can see in some of the screen caps the picture is occasionally tinted a bit. Skin tones look good, fine detail is impressive and texture is as well. No serious complaints here, the movie looks very good.

Also impressive is the film's English language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix. This is a film that, for all its faults, offers up excellent sound design and this track makes the most of it. The score is spread out beautifully and with plenty of power while sound effects take advantage of all the channels the mix makes available. Bass response is tight and strong but well controlled ensuring that the dialogue stays clean and easily discernible. Optional subtitles are offered in English SDH and Spanish, there are no alternate language dubbed options provided.

Director James McTeigue is joined by the producer team of Marc D. Evans, Trevor Macy, and Aaron Ryder to kick off the supplements on the disc with a pretty decent audio commentary. Topics covered include location shooting in Eastern Europe, the trials and tribulations of dealing with the Poe legacy, casting the movie, effects, what works and what doesn't and more. It's a pretty honest talk with some good information.

Aside from that, we get a few featurettes, the first of which is The Raven Guts: Bringing Death to Live, a thirteen minute piece that provides a decent mix of behind the scenes footage shot on set and some talking head interviews with the principal cast and crew members. The ten minute long The Madness, Misery, And Mystery of Edgar Allen Poe allows two Poe historians to wax nostalgic about the real Poe's life and works, while the two minute Behind The Beauty And Horror is a brief promotional piece dressed as a featurette. The Raven Presents John Cusack And James McTeigue is a three minute interview with the director conducted by the film's leading man about how and why this project exists in the first place, while the five minute long Music for the Raven - The Team let's McTeigue introduce and discuss the work done on the film by the team responsible for its musical score.

Rounding out the extras are some Deleted and Extended Scenes, six of them in total, some animated menus and chapter stops. As this is a combo pack release there's a DVD version and a digital copy of the movie provided. All of the extras on the Blu-ray disc are in high definition.

The Final Word:

Loads of strong technique and some impressive visual flair make The Raven a treat for the eyes while the played out storyline prevents it from ever taking off the way it could have. There's an interesting idea here but it's never fully exploited, the end result is a very pretty exercise in style over substance, but Fox earns top marks for a great Blu-ray presentation.

Click on images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!