| Film Review - Queen of the Damned |
| Well, it's about time. Anyone that's ever been a fan of the Vampire Chronicles will know that this film has been in devlopment for AGES. Yep, that's a technical term. Anyway, it's finally out, and was it worth the wait? Not really, no. First off, this film is based on the third novel in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, the first being Interview With the Vampire, which was made into a great film by Neil Jordan eight years ago, and the second being the Vampire Lestat, which was not. Anne Rice had absolutely nothing to do with this film aside from having her name acknowledged in the credits. She offered to write the script, as she did for Interview, but was turned down, even after offering to do it for free. I have absolutely no idea why the studio hired whoever they did, because the script in this is terrible, makes little sense, has shocking continuity and little to no character development. Hell, some of the characters aren't even named! There's one vampire who justs stands around looking like a caveman, and then he dies. Still, he was good for comic value, and laughing at this movie was the only thing that kept me sitting through it. The acting is pretty lacklustre for the most part: Stuart Townsend does okay as Lestat, and he actually has the proper accent (which was the only thing I thought was missing from Tom Cruise's performance), but he's still not quite as rampantly arrogant as Lestat should be. Everyone else just basically turns up, says their lines, collects their paycheck and goes home. Aaliyah seems to have a case of the Darth Mauls going with her performance in the title role of Akasha, meaning that she has very little screen time, few lines which aren't very villainous anyway, and an average death. Whoop-de-doo. The effects aren't much to look at either, even for a vampire film. Word of advice for anyone making a vampire flick: it's SIMPLE! Loads of cheap fake blood and if you can afford it, some nice spontaneous vampire combustion. Neither of these elements are even satisfactory in QotD. The blood's hardly there and if it is it's the wrong colour, and the explosions look cheap and unconvincing. They looked way better in John Carpenter's Vampires, for instance, and that was made on a much smaller budget. One other thing about the effects: what the hell is with all the motion blur? It's pointless and makes everything look like Mortal Kombat. For some reason, every time a vampire moves in some way other than a normal human (ie. with speed or flight) it needs to have the stupid motion blur trailing effect. The overuse of this really got on my nerves. I think I should make mention of the adaptation from the book, so if you don't care about that sort of thing, then don't bother with this paragraph. There's just so many things that have changed from the book, that the film hardly makes sense any more. Principal characters are non-existent, key plot points are forgotten, and most of the movie is leading up to the concert, which takes place about a quarter of the way into the book. Furthermore, there's a clumsy attempt by the screenwriters to wash over the missed second book by having Jesse read Lestat's diary, but even that isn't accurate in the slightest. I mean, it's ok to change some things in a book when adapting it, but this is just ridiculous. Alright, enough whinging about the book. The costumes are interesting in this film, particularly the old-world stuff, and the sets are elaborately designed, which both make the film at least a little bit watchable. The music (which is kind of important since Lestat's a rock star) is actually quite boring. It sounds like watered-down Korn, not surprising since Jonathon Davis wrote and performed it. Strangely enough, at Lestat's concert, the support band is Disturbed, and you only hear part of one song by them (Sickness), but they manage to upstage Lestat's band completely. Don't see Queen of the Damned if you're a fan of the books, and don't see it if you're not. Actually just don't see it. *1/2 |
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