Review by JabezGill

The acting was outstanding - Christian Bale was as solid as always and Harry Melling was outstanding as a - likely very accurate (behavior & personality-wise) Edgar Allan Poe.

The film looked great, although you could tell budget-wise they probably didn't have a lot to work with so the scope was narrow.

The pacing was slow for most... (and issue with all of Cooper's films). For a mystery there wasn't really any of the heart racing sprint to the details and although there was a climax in the story - I was built up and didn't pay off like the great movies of this genre.

And I think that was the biggest hang up - the story and the mystery just doesn't feel very deep... it feels very generic and straight forward... like a weekly police procedural tv show - which is disappointing because of the depth of Edgar Allan Poe's writings.

Although Poe is just a character in Louis Bayard's story - I was hoping for some of the intellectual depth of a Poe story.

This film reminds me a lot of Hostiles - there is so much space/breath given to dialogue and scenes and such a lack of score to build scenes or add depth... that it kind've feels empty.

That being said, watch the movie - hopefully it does well and filmmakers are more encouraged to adapt more Poe-related material!