The Pale Blue Eye

The Pale Blue Eyes had a lot of potential to become an atmospheric period crime classic featuring E.A. Poe as a character. After watching it, however, I have to say that that the potential remains woefully untapped. Above all, the film suffers from a long running time and slow pace – the story could certainly have fit into a hundred minutes and would have been more compelling and tight. Even from an audiovisual point of view, the film didn't work on me as I expected. I do, however, praise the last third and its two twists. The first is oddly predictable, but the second is quite surprising, though it have come 20 or 30 minutes earlier. Poe's character was fine, but by the end it was too much. Better three stars! (2023-01-13)

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)

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)

I found Melling's acting terribly irritating for the first half hour, but then somehow it clicked; he’s a weird guy. I once read somewhere that every person has some equivalent of an animal, in my eyes he is a bat. If there's ever a remake of Nosferatu, I vote for him with all my limbs. Otherwise I really liked the visuals, the real locations, I really liked the candlelight and the eye-catching contrast it created; the atmosphere was delectable, the cold added so much. The pace was ok, I like these slowly told stories, and the twist at the end after the first reveal surprised me. I have no problem with this film, unlike my already oversaturated colleagues here. (2023-01-22)

Scott Cooper's collaboration with Christian Bale was once a resounding success (if you haven’t seen Hostiles from 2017, you should definitely check it out). Unfortunately, here, Cooper bit off more than he could chew. The visuals are flawless—E.A. Poe’s unmistakable book atmosphere is perfectly captured on screen, and even the dramatic monologues surprisingly fit well into the overall concept. But the pacing! The first hour drags at times to an almost unbearable degree. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy slower detective stories, but this was taken to an extreme. The film did manage to redeem itself somewhat towards the end—it started to gain real momentum, and the final plot twist truly knocked me off my feet. Bale delivered a masterful performance once again. So, it ends up being a solid 7/10, but honestly, it had the potential for a much higher rating. Such a shame. I give it 7/10. (2023-02-01)