Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Steve Dallas is turning into a regular little busybody. Yes, he is. And here he is, back with a look at today's release of the latest Anne Rice adaptation to find its way to film. Haven't seen it. Didn't like the script. Not sure I'll be seeing it. But for those of you who are still curious, here's what Steve thought about it:
M.
Thanks to those wonderful folks over at Chud.com, I got into a screening of QUEEN OF THE DAMNED tonight. AICN chat regulars GrendelKhan and JennGirl accompanied me to the screening, which was utterly & completely packed. The crowd was an interesting mix of goths, skinheads, Anne Rice types and Aaliyah fans. Four very distinct groups of people walked into that theater tonight… when we left, we were all feeling the same way.
Disappointed.
I’d love to tell you what this film is about… Truth be told, I haven’t got a clue. It’s a garbled mess, combining elements of two Anne Rice novels: THE VAMPIRE LESTAT and QUEEN OF THE DAMNED. In the film, Lestat (Stuart Townsend) casts aside the anonymous life long required of vampires. He openly proclaims himself and becomes a huge hit as a rock star. He draws the ire of the other vampires, who seek him out and try to destroy him. But his bold actions awaken Akasha (Aaliyah), the queen of all vampires, who has slept for a thousand years. She’s back, and she’s pissed. All the vampires must join together to save the world and themselves from the Queen of the Damned.
I don’t consider myself an Anne Rice fan. I have read the books, but it’s been a long time since I gave them any thought. I do, however, have a vivid memory of Neil Jordan’s film, INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE. His film was far from perfect, but it did manage to capture at least an inkling of what Rice was after – the horror of having to live forever. Visually, it was stunning, and the cast was amazing. But that was a long time ago. Little Claudia has grown up into Kirsten Dunst, and we’re all a little bit older.
QUEEN OF THE DAMNED isn't so much a sequel to INTERVIEW as it is a reimagining. There is very little continuity between the two films. It is almost as if they exist in different worlds, which is regrettable. When you make a sequel, you have the opportunity to build upon the characters you have already developed. QUEEN casts aside the foundation laid in INTERVIEW, and starts completely anew. The filmmakers spend a lot of time revisiting material that was explained better in INTERVIEW: What it means to die and become a vampire, the first feeding, living alone, the “I wanna be a vampire” shtick. This is all time which could have been better spent developing and / or explaining this pathetic excuse for a storyline.
What QUEEN shares with INTERVIEW is (at times) an amazing visual style. Whoever scouted these locations should be bronzed. The film LOOKS great. Marius’ Island Hideaway, Maharet’s home & garden. That night on the beach. Here, I’ll say it again. The sets and locations are amazing. Add a great soundtrack and you’ve almost got a film. You’ve got a helluva music video, if nothing else. The music from Korn frontman Jonathan Davis and Richard Gibbs is excellent. It fits. It drives. It rocks. With this soundtrack and these sets, If this film had been nothing but a two hour orgy of sight & sound, I would have left the theatre satisfied.
But the film fails even at that level. The director, Michaela Rymer, couldn’t decide whether to make a music video or a vampire flick. He chose both, and made neither.
This is a movie about a rock & roll vampire. It’It was made by people who know nothing about rock & roll. The film’s climax occurs at a concert. It’s painfully obvious that no one involved with this production has ever attended one. These scenes are laughably bad. Lestat is backed by the most boring band in existence, save perhaps The Boston Pops. These guys have the stage presence of a turnip. If you’ve caught a Bob Dylan show in the last decade, you may have some idea of what I’m talking about.
Then it gets worse. In the middle of the concert, the vampire’s attack. It’s Vampire Wire-Fu, baby… and it’s bad. Miserably bad. It’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen. Odenkirk’s gopher-chucks would not have seemed out of place. The audience was laughing hysterically.
Just at that moment when you think “it can’t get any worse”, Akasha makes her entrance. Suddenly, you realize: you couldn’t have been more wrong. The Aaliyah fans cheered like maniacs. The rest of us laughed like buffoons. It’s almost like QUEEN is two movies. The first part - leading up to the concert - is not good. From the concert on, it is much, much worse.
The acting in this film is bad… How do you make vampires boring? For one thing, they remove all the sexual overtones… Then, they give them ridiculous accents. Next, give them ridiculous non-vampire things to do, like rip off the “can you read my mind” scene from SUPERMAN. Finally, they cover them in really, really bad makeup. When they don’t look vampyric enough, they use CGI to smooth their appearance. I have never, ever left a theater before complaining about makeup. Hell, I’ve never even noticed it before. This was a first. Thank you, Warner’s & Roadshow, for opening my eyes to this underappreciated field of endeavor.
But underneath the pancake lay people, charged with bringing the undead to life. The bell tolls for them as well.
Stewart Townsend play’s the poor, misunderstood Vampire Lestat. Peter Jackson… wherever you are… Thank you. Stewart Townsend would have made a miserable Aragorn. It takes a lot to make Tom Cruise’s Lestat look good. Townsend, not to be outdone, pulls it off. He plays Lestat as a pretty boy.. he’s happy, bearing none of the anger or the rage you would expect. His portrayal has no depth. Maybe it was written shallow, I honestly don’t know… But how do you take a character with three books of backstory and make him dull and uninteresting? Freddie Prinze, Look out… You have a rival.
Aaliyah, god rest her soul, is all over the promotional materials for this film. She appears about an hour in. She kicks some ass, does about 8 scenes, and reads maybe 40 lines. In short, she’s wasted. What of her lines they didn’t ADR sound like utter hell, covered over in reverb effects that Phil Spector would have disowned. But the biggest crime was her appearance. In life, she was a hottie. How the hell do you make her look bad? Somehow, they managed. The film is dedicated to her memory. Her fans were quite vocal, and applauded every time she appeared, but Warner’s should have just cut her and reshot. She doesn’t deserve to go out like this.
Marguerite Moreau plays Jesse. She’s a member of an order dedicated to watching things like Vampire covens, but not interfering. Turns out, she was raised by vampires. What a great character! Regrettably, Moreau’s performance is so dull, it’s almost unwatchable. It’s like watching paint dry. It’s like doing your taxes, or maybe reorganizing your sock drawer. She gets shown up badly by a child actor playing a 12 year old version of herself. The kid makes the character far more interesting. She deserves more work. Moreau, regrettably, does not. It’s too bad, really… she’s quite easy to look at.
The supporting cast, ridiculously attired, is woefully unused. They look silly for maybe all of 20 minutes, then they vanish back into obscurity. They were the lucky ones.
Finally, The sound design for this film was miserable. I saw this in my favorite theater. It’s got the best sound system I know of in this town. It was loud, I’ll give them that. But it sounded like Mono in a THX room. They had 6 channels to work with, and they didn’t use them. Everything felt like it was coming from the mains behind the screen. This film had the potential to do some cool things. It didn’t. Loud doesn’t always mean “good.”
There is a story behind this film. It’s been told better by others, and I wont reiterate it here. Warner’s was in a bind. They were damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t. Someone involved with this needs to write a book. This is how a bad movie gets made.
If you’re an Anne Rice Fanatic, you’ll have to see this film. It’ll be like going to a funeral for a close friend – unpleasant, but necessary. As for the rest of you, If you want to see a good movie about bloodsucking, evil creatures, Go rent THE FIRM. If you want to see a good Vampire flick this weekend, go rent BLADE, or maybe INTERVIEW. I can’t think of a single reason to catch this one in a theater.
