Article updated: 4/26/2012 8:40 AM

Poe mystery thriller thwarted by silly implausibilities

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Edgar Allan Poe (John Cusack) must stop a diabolical serial killer before he threatens the life of his fiance (Alice Eve) in the period thriller "The Raven."

Baltimore police detective Fields (Luke Evans), left, and Edgar Allan Poe (John Cusack) team up to stop a diabolical serial killer in the period thriller "The Raven."

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Edgar Allan Poe (John Cusack), right, examines a crime scene involving a device from his literary creation.

Emily (Alice Eve) becomes part of a deadly Edgar Allan Poe story in the period thriller "The Raven."

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James McTeigue's period mystery thriller "The Raven" offers nothing to suggest Edgar Allan Poe's literary genius or intellect, something that might have been cleverly employed as a way for the writer to profile the serial killer using his stories as inspirations for his crimes. That's hardly an issue in this implausibly silly whodunit unwilling to play fair with clues to its absurd crimes.