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)

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)

Another standard Netflix disappointment, which seem to pile up more and more each year. Scott Cooper, Christian Bale, and a promising blend of mysticism and 19th-century detective story all fall flat here. The plot is dull and empty, undeserving of such an intriguing premise, and it drags on for over two hours. The worst part is that there’s a lot of good work put into this film. With a better script, it could have been fantastic. Instead, Harry Melling's performance as Edgar Allan Poe is stellar but ultimately wasted. (2023-01-16)

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)