The Raven
Rogue Pictures | Release Date: April 27, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
44
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
20
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
30
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovMay 2, 2012
It is, in a word or two, everything that Poe's tales and poems were not: interminable and picayune. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy BurrApr 26, 2012
A grimly preposterous serial-killer thriller set in 19th-century Baltimore, this riff on the final days of the author of "The Tell-Tale Heart" and other masterpieces of the macabre might qualify as literary desecration if it weren't so silly. Read full review
40
Boxoffice MagazineMark OlsenApr 30, 2012
Likely to disappoint both literary aficionados and action-thriller fans, the film neither captures the creepy atmospheres of Poe's influential writing nor works on its own. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesApr 26, 2012
This may conjure up unpleasant memories of Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes" movies, but Ritchie could learn a lot from director James McTeigue (V for Vendetta); this is multiplex fare to be sure, but McTeigue manages to popularize 19th-century literature without completely vulgarizing it. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertApr 25, 2012
When I heard that John Cusack had been cast for this film, it sounded like good news: I could imagine him as Poe, tortured and brilliant, lashing out at a cruel world. But that isn't the historical Poe the movie has in mind. It is a melodramatic Poe, calling for the gifts of Nicolas Cage. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsApr 26, 2012
The Raven squanders a promising scenario while half-burying Cusack's mercurial skills as a leading man with the wiles of a character actor. Read full review
40
EmpireKim NewmanMar 10, 2012
Besides being an author, Edgar Allan Poe was one of the most vicious, merciless critics of his age. He would not have let this get past him without skewering its shortcomings with a barbed quill. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanMay 2, 2012
The film, devising events that led up to his mysterious death in 1849, is also the most gruesomely literal-minded of period detective stories. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyApr 27, 2012
rRegrettably falls prey to its grand and grisly ambitions - it's neither grand nor grisly enough to seriously satisfy Poe-ish cravings for murder, mystery and literary allusions. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezApr 27, 2012
For a good hour or so, The Raven is gruesome, ludicrous fun. Then it's just ludicrous. Read full review
60
MovielineStephanie ZacharekApr 27, 2012
A handsome-looking thing, with fairly grand period costumes and reasonably lavish sets. So much for production values: In every other way the picture is stiff and unyielding, hampered by a clumsy plot and diorama performances. The whole thing has the feel of a second-rate living-history exhibit. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierApr 26, 2012
This wannabe Sherlockian thriller is like a night spent at Madame Tussauds, watching mannequins strangle other mannequins. Read full review
63
New York PostLou LumenickApr 27, 2012
In the skilled hands of Cusack - who recites quite a bit of Poe's poetry - and director John McTeigue ("V for Vendetta''), it's good pulpy fun. Read full review
42
Portland OregonianShawn LevyApr 26, 2012
Befitting a film about Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven is dark and grisly and ghoulish. But it also has qualities that Poe's work never does: It's dull and mechanical and, most of all, phony. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliApr 25, 2012
The Raven is period piece fun - at least until it realizes there has to be a conclusion. That's where a certain amount of inevitable disappointment sets in. The curse of the two-hour murder mystery is that the ending never seems to justify the build-up. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversApr 26, 2012
Cusack captures that desperation vividly enough to make you wish this was the real Poe story, which The Raven onscreen leaves buried alive. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleApr 26, 2012
The story has its moments, and yet there is something about this tale of a serial killer's patterning his crimes on Poe's most gruesome works that doesn't completely satisfy. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineJaime N. ChristleyApr 26, 2012
While full of welcome gore and blood spatter, it's bankrupt of any creative spark. Read full review
50
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallApr 25, 2012
The Raven isn't nearly as much fun as it should be. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubTasha RobinsonApr 25, 2012
Poe was a flawed figure, but his greatest strength was in avoiding convention, or reinterpreting it to create something new. The Raven aspires to both, but abandons those ambitions to lie limply on the floor - only this, and nothing more. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyApr 26, 2012
The pervasive gore overpowers the few clumsy attempts at wit here, though the film does have one funny line. As one of Poe's literary rivals watches a razor-edged pendulum slice into his abdomen, the man screams in protest: "But I'm only a critic!" Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 16, 2012
It runs out of steam in the final 10 minutes, but there's some gruesome drama and Cusack is on decent form. Read full review
40
The New York TimesA.O. ScottApr 26, 2012
The Raven tries to blend all of these motley genres together, and though the effort is valiant, the result is a mess. I suspect Poe's review of it would have been much more savage than mine. Read full review
60
TimeRichard CorlissApr 30, 2012
Until The Raven almost literally loses itself during a chase in the city sewers, it nicely balances its literary gamesmanship with a R-rated thriller's mandatory gross-out tableaux. Read full review
40
Time OutDavid FearApr 27, 2012
Bibliophiles, librarians and graduate students may swoon at the sight of the author's signature grotesquerie. Read full review
40
Total FilmNeil SmithMar 16, 2012
As implausible as the stars' gleaming choppers. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigApr 26, 2012
This many-feathered animal occasionally soars before it crash-lands. Read full review
40
VarietyLeslie FelperinMar 10, 2012
The Raven is a squawking, silly picture that never takes flight. Read full review
30
Village VoiceNick PinkertonApr 30, 2012
It's a pathetic missed opportunity - and one occasion of actually going broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American public. Read full review
38
Washington PostJohn DeForeApr 26, 2012
Director James McTeigue was much more successful capturing graphic novelist Alan Moore's mood in "V for Vendetta" than he is conjuring the bone-chilling suspense of Poe. But viewed as simply another Hollywood thriller, The Raven builds up a decent head of steam as time runs out for our hero's imperiled fiancee. Read full review
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