First Trailer For THE RAVEN Arrives

Can James McTeigue redeem himself for the mess that was Ninja Assassin? He's hoping that casting John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe in The Raven will help do the trick but I'm not quite convinced.

In this gritty thriller, Edgar Allan Poe (John Cusack, Being John Malkovich) joins forces with a young Baltimore detective (Luke Evans, Immortals) to hunt down a mad serial killer who's using Poe's own works as the basis in a string of brutal murders. Directed by James McTeigue (V for Vendetta, Ninja Assassin), the film also stars Alice Eve (Sex and the City 2), Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges) and Oliver Jackson-Cohen (Faster). When a mother and daughter are found brutally murdered in 19th century Baltimore, Detective Emmett Fields (Luke Evans) makes a startling discovery: the crime resembles a fictional murder described in gory detail in the local newspaper--part of a collection of stories penned by struggling writer and social pariah Edgar Allan Poe. But even as Poe is questioned by police, another grisly murder occurs, also inspired by a popular Poe story. Realizing a serial killer is on the loose using Poe's writings as the backdrop for his bloody rampage, Fields enlists the author's help in stopping the attacks. But when it appears someone close to Poe may become the murderer's next victim, the stakes become even higher and the inventor of the detective story calls on his own powers of deduction to try to solve the case before it's too late.

The first trailer has just arrived and while the look of the film is very strong and this fictionalized version of Poe should play strong to the folks who responded to Guy Ritchie's version of Sherlock Holmes it also seems to struggle on two fronts. First, why do we need another Sherlock Holmes? We just had this movie and are already getting a sequel to it and, sorry John, but Cusack just doesn't have the screen charisma of Robert Downey Jr. And, second, regardless of overall talent there are a good number of actors who simply cannot do period convincingly. And there appear to be rather a lot of them in this film.

But maybe that's just me. The trailer is over at Apple, take a look and judge for yourself.