Audiences love gothic detective stories, so "The All-Seeing Eye" frankly tries to be something like "The Prestige" or "The Raven." However, its attempts are shattered by classic genre limitations. How did that happen? 

Plot

A military academy is shaken by a terrible murder that closely resembles a ritual sacrifice. The investigation is entrusted to the talented but alcohol-prone Augustus Landor (Christian Bale), who realizes he will need help from within the academy walls. 

The ideal candidate for surveillance becomes a certain cadet, Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling), who is only too happy to help Landor. Together, they must determine whether the academy's occult society is involved in the mysterious events, or if a more dangerous threat lies behind them, one that will not stop at a single murder.

The Director's All-Seeing Eye

Undoubtedly, the project had enormous potential. 

Firstly, the setting of a closed educational institution for British youth in the 1800s creates a rather amusing blend of dark Harry Potter and "Sleepy Hollow." The presence of several actors (such as Melling and Timothy Spall) from the wizarding franchise clearly works to reinforce this feeling.

(And this idea could have been developed in an interesting direction - it's a pity the director decided to go for a slightly more canonical noir detective story.)

Also, an undoubted plus of the film is the excellent acting performances. There is no doubt about Christian Bale's mastery, while Harry Melling firmly establishes himself as a leader in the nomination for "most interesting career of an actor who started working in film as a child with the HP movies." His Edgar Allan Poe, for some strange reason, fits the film's tone and the original image perfectly.

Perhaps the fact that Melling did his job so well works against the film to some extent - the resulting Poe clearly deserves a better script. Moreover, his character practically does nothing and serves more as just another witness to the unfolding events. Yet the connection to the name of the king of gothic prose simply demands references to his works or an interesting development of his personality. We got this in very small proportions. Sad.

Imbalance as It Is

It is in the script and proportions that the film's biggest problem lies - "The All-Seeing Eye" is simply incredibly boring, unimaginably drawn out, and stunningly bland. Yes, the atmosphere and actors carry it to some extent, but they are not all-powerful either.

Take the structure, for example - roughly approaching the second act, the narrative focus shifts to the interpersonal relationships of the characters, completely forgetting about the investigation. 

I'm not saying that detective stories shouldn't pay attention to relationship development. On the contrary, watching characters you understand and empathize with is always much more interesting. But for heaven's sake, not at the expense of the DETECTIVE story? Somewhere in the middle of the runtime, "The All-Seeing Eye" seems to say: "Murders? What murders? I don't know about any murders, here's a series of strange conversations and conflicts that affect nothing instead."

The secret to skillfully juggling different themes and parallels lies in understanding how much, what, and when to show the viewer - director Scott Cooper, unfortunately, lacks this understanding. Would cutting out an extra half hour help the film be less drawn out? Probably not, because the balance would still be off; only re-editing the film from scratch and a complete overhaul of its structure could help here.

Classic Detective Story

An uninitiated viewer might wonder - why make a detective story about a gloomy poet obsessed with mysticism at all? The answer is actually simple - Poe is considered one of the creators of the detective genre; read or listen to "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" in your spare time. 

Perhaps that's why the authors didn't reinvent the wheel and made the central investigation completely standard, as if classic, stripping it entirely of any unique twist. Yes, there are hints of occultism and the gothic, but they are frankly too few to have any serious impact on the plot.

So it turns out that detective story fans won't get anything new or interesting, and fans of our Edgar Allan will be deprived of a potentially beautiful story in the spirit of his tales. After all, even "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is not as simple as the plot presented to us, which tries to seem many times smarter than it actually is.

"The All-Seeing Eye" was a big disappointment - precisely because it had enormous potential, but what came out was a very mediocre and very gray film. Terribly disappointing.