The Raven, a largely disappointing thriller that just opened this weekend, takes place in 1849 in Baltimore, Maryland.  A mysterious killer is terrorizing the city and, as Inspector Fields (Luke Evans) quickly deduces, he’s patterning his murders after the works of an alcoholic and disreputable writer named Edgar Allan Poe (played here, in the style of Robert Downey, Jr., by John Cusack).  Fields recruits Poe to help catch the killer but the killer has other plans.  He kidnaps Edgar’s fiancée  Emily(Alice Eve*) and then challenges Edgar to a game.  The killer will continue to commit random murders and, with each murder, he’ll include a clue to finding Emily.  However, Edgar also has to write a story inspired by the killer’s crimes.  Desperate to save Emily, Edgar agrees…

I wouldn’t necessarily say that I had high hopes for The Raven but, on the basis of the trailer, I was hoping that it would at least be an entertaining and self-aware genre piece.  Unfortunately, The Raven isn’t even that.  Instead, it’s a slowly paced, predictable film that’s not even awful enough to be fun.  John Cusack has a few enjoyably over-the-top moments as Edgar Allan Poe and Brendan Gleeson is always fun when he’s being all blustery but the rest of the cast barely seems to be awake.  (In particular, poor Luke Evans struggles to look like he’s interested in anything that’s happening on-screen.)  Director James McTeigue comes up with a lot of striking images but the film is so oddly edited that the scenes never seem to flow together and the end result is a film that feels oddly static and listless.

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*Alice Eve has heterochromia, just like me!  Yay for both of us!