Sunday, April 29, 2012

Movie Review - The Raven

I am a big John Cusack fan. He is a great actor and has turned out some incredible movies over the years - Grosse Point Blank and The Jack Bull are among my favorites.  I went to see "The Raven" today with mixed feelings - the critics have not been kind to the movie.

So, let me start with the good things - I liked the movie, generally speaking. Cusack was good and the conceit of the story was interesting, but the movie was basically muddled. I can give you an example - there is a scene about three quarters of the way through the movie when the heroes have arrived at and are surrounding a church where they think the killer is.  One of the lesser characters, a police man, is sent around the side.  As he approaches a door way he looks up and the killer, all dressed in black, is on top of the arched doorway.  He leaps off and attacks!

Except, uh, what the heck was he doing standing on top of an arched doorway, dressed in black, in broad daylight?  Unfortunately, the movie never tells you why.  Unfortunately, the real reason is the director probably thought it would be cool to have the villain leaping with his cape flapping.  Sadly, there are several other scenes in the movie, some of them fairly long, that are cut from the same piece of film.  Scenes with no foreshadowing, no purpose, and no motivation.  There was a good movie in there, but what came out at the final end of the editing process wasn't it.

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