The Pale Blue Eye

A film where pretty much everything is right except how long it is, or rather how long it feels. Had they cut half an hour, which they sure could have done, it would have been better. Otherwise I really have nothing to complain about, the acting and cinematography are excellent, the story is interesting and the ending is strong. (2023-01-15)

A rather unexciting period piece that is unfortunately too uninteresting for most of its running time to afford to be so slow (and long). I was about to give it two stars, but the final reveal improved the impression a bit. Anyway, it's a shame, had it been written and directed a little more vividly, it could have been a different cinematic experience. (2023-01-07)

Big blue...I know what. Bale is lethargic, Melling plays Poe as if he’s had polio, and it doesn’t help that he looks identical to the master’s iconic likeness. Scott Cooper wrote a florid but hopelessly executed fusion of serious drama and corny horror story involving murders, which under his stiff direction also occasionally seems like a production staged by a university drama club. The would-be melancholic philosophising about the poet’s fate and the half-hearted references to Poe’s work aren’t exactly great either. I was really in the mood for this film, but after a while I found myself cursing and beating my beak against the window of my own nevermore. (2023-01-14)

Oh, my God, that was like 14 days long. Otherwise, it's a classic "Guess the murderer" type crime thriller with some pretty cool period visuals and an unexciting but average Christian Bale, but the running time is just horribly tedious. A skippable piece that no one will remember in two days. (2023-01-11)

Occultism, a treacherous heart, or a motif as old as humanity itself? The criminal plot was meant to be intriguingly woven with the problematic personality of the founder of the detective genre (Melling, with his cheekbones, could easily play a vampire from an eighties horror film without needing makeup), but it somehow didn’t succeed in the candlelit gloom. Anticipation for a gothic crime film with horror elements wasn’t entirely dampened, but it seems that in terms of tightness and the ability to build atmosphere, Scott Cooper is starting to run Out of the Furnace. The final shot will leave only those uncertain who don’t know how the Guardian of Gotham manages to cope with loss and work at heights. (2023-01-17)