With no Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt in sight, this seductive adaptation starts off with Stuart Townsend waking from centuries of hibernation by the sound of throbbing rock music. Feeling so alive that he can sense it rushing through his veins he stirs in his coffin wanting to know where this new sound is coming from. Rising from his death-like slumber he steps out into the light and finds his destiny living amoung mortals and forming his own band. He transforms himself into a musical masterpiece, leading goth musicians down the path to fame and fortune, and the thousands of screaming fans of course.
Stuart Townsend plays this Gothic new-age vampire suducing the world, and I have to say that he did an amazing job of it. I felt I was truly under his spell throughout. Townsend is an enchanting actor with grace and sexuality, luring victims with his hypnotic singing voice. Seducing the globe he reinvents himself and breaks vampire law by informing said world of who and what he is, a process which disturbs other vampires from their sleep, including the beautiful Queen Akasha (the late Aaliyah), mother of all vampires. Whilst living in a crypt beneath the Arctic ice she sleeps, waiting for her world to melt as her thirst for power and revolution grows stronger. The very empowering role she played was perfection, and despite her immaturity it is difficult to see any other actress making the same impression she does. She looked amazing and her sultry voice was like her powers: firey and explosive.
While Queen of the Damned's typical fanbase is nuts for Rice, to say it is for vampire genre fans only isnt true at all (which I will explain later), and even though I am a huge fan of vampire movies I cannot condem this film like others of my ilk have. A lot of press reviews blackened the film's name and slighted Aaliyah's performance which I feel isn't fair in the slightest. Even though she didn't actually have a lot of screen time what she did have she portrayed very well. It's not difficult to imagine that if her role had been expanded that the film might have reviewed, and subsequently performed, better. Certainly Queen Akasha's historical importance could have been explored visually instead of the couple of lines of spoken exposition we get from the film. But what she lacked in quantity she certainly made up for in quality.
However, the weaknesses in the movie where Anne Rice fans would be concerned is that very little of the original story was portrayed, with Stuart Townsend looking nothing like Lestat. He has blonde hair with violet eyes, while the literary Lestat had brown hair and brown eyes. Lestat is no longer the beloved brat prince, but a man who is hungry for power. The only thing they actually got right was that Lestat was chained to a bed/table and forcibly made a vampire, though even then it was by Magnus and not Marius. As such, as a sequel to Interview with a Vampire (which it claims to be despite all evidence to the contrary!), and as an adaption of the book, it reeks. Horribly. As a mainstream movie on its own right though I have found it to be a beautiful musical love story with power and passion. |
