‘The Raven’ is doomed from its very conception.

The idea that a crazy person would start copying the murders from Poe’s stories isn’t terrible, but the idea that this would cause Poe to be called in and asked to help solve the crimes is pretty stupid. From there it only gets dumber.

The killer makes it clear that he is a serious fan of Poe’s work. This immediately narrows the pool of suspects to one. This is a whodunit in which even the simple among us will know who done it before the end of the first act. We meet his love, and we know her fate before she’s said even a few sentences.

There isn’t a lot of reason to stay after that. There is a lot of stilted dialogue and amusingly transient accent work, but the movie that remains is a ponderous slog in period dress with very little in the way of payoff. I suggest avoiding it altogether.

Quoth the Raven, “Meh”.