The Raven

Now, those who listen to the BBC's flagship film review programme (Kermode & Mayo's Film Review) will know that I am a huge fan of John Cusack and that I am the co-creator of the 'Cusackathon'.

So, when a Cusack film is about to be released, there is an element of trepidation. Is this going to be a classic such as High Fidelity or Max? Or is it going to be 2012 or Hot Tub Time Machine? Unfortunately, it's not good...

The film centres on Edgar Allen Poe (Cusack) and the last five days of his life which go from elation to despair to the downright unbelievable.

Professionally, Poe is finding it increasingly difficult to get his work published as his editor reveals that the public only like Poe's gory tales. Personally, however his life is taking a turn for the better as he becomes engaged to Emily (Alice Eve). This is despite her father, Colonel Hamilton, (Brendan Gleeson) strong reservations about Poe's suitability.

While this is going on, there are a number of gruesome murders taking place, the detective in charge, Inspector Fields (Luke Evans) initially thinks that the murders are linked to Poe. He soon realises that the murders are based on murders that Poe has described in his stories. It then becomes clear that the killer is working his way towards harming someone close to Poe to get to Poe. In order to prevent this from happening, Fields and Poe have to work together to work out the murderer's next move.

Although this is a fictionalised account of the last five days of Poe's life, it is just an absurd story, told in a really boring way. Cusack looked distinctly uninterested and as though he is just going through the motions. Evans and Gleeson were good, but not even they could do much with the dire and clunky script.

Visually it looked good, but that did little to save this film.

Verdict: Given that I have been a fan of Cusack since Say Anything, I quite frankly deserve to see a little less of this and other garbage such as 2012 and more Max and High Fidelity. Cusack - get a better agent who can get you into better films...