THE RAVEN [2012]

John Cusack does his usual self-absorbed "tortured" smartass routine, only this time he's Edgar Allan Poe in James McTeigue's fictional mystery about the final days of the author's life, The Raven.

It's a beautiful looking grisly film that tells a tightly wound little tale that unfortunately has no character to it.  We're introduced to Poe's personal problems but they are never utilized in any sort of interesting character conflict, which makes me wonder why the character had to be Poe in the first place.  It's got a few moments of intrigue but in the end it adds up to nothing but frustrated disappointment.  

2 raccoons out of 5

V FOR VENDETTA [2005]

Director James McTeigue & The Wachowskis bring Alan Moore & David Lloyd's V For Vendetta comic books to the screen with mixed results. 

It's faulted with sloppy dialogue, uninspired lighting & framing and completely altering the political agenda originally explored in it's source material to better suit American culture with a politically juvenile message. On the other hand, the film never seems to waste scenes on pointless character moments and continues to build upon their development and the world around them, which makes it easy to become quite involved with it's intent.  

By no means a perfect film but still a entertaining ride that lost it's original objective.

3½ 1812 Overtures of Destruction out of 5