Queen of the Damned the Movie
or The Movie Without a Hair-Dye Budget
(a completely biased review from a VampChron fan attempting to be objective*)
As it Stands
Queen of the Damned is not the worst vampire movie I have ever
seen. That title belongs to the 1970s miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's
Forget for second that QotD is even based on a book. (Hard, but
the directors and writers had no problem doing it, so just try for argument's
sake.) As a movie on its own it has nothing but crippled legs to stand on.
Forgive me, amputated legs. The movie does not make a whole lot of
sense. Characters enter left and right through the entire film. Plot points are
ignored until they become crucial information and then are blurted out in short
sentences. For example, the fact that killing Akasha, the Queen of the Damned,
would in effect kill all the vampires is not even hinted at until she's
about to die and she says "You kill me you kill yourselves." Or something to that effect. I'm not entirely sure because
by that point I was trying very hard not to think of anything suicide related.
The plot jumps around in no apparent order, characters have
no motivation to do much of anything, and many characters really don't
do anything. Half of them don't even have names. None of the characters seemed
to have any relationships with each other aside from shallow, surface feelings.
Marius and Lestat, for example, seem awkward together, even in the flashbacks.
Jesse and Lestat seem even more awkward together. Maybe that's because of my
bias or maybe there just wasn't a connection. I'm betting it's both.
Lestat speaks with a choppy Transylvanian accent, yet the film
makes it a point to remind us that he's French on several occasions. (Wait,
what I am saying? That kind of plot problem is completely worthy of the new
Anne Rice.) At any rate, it just emphasized the feeling that this movie didn't
know which direction to go--is it a serious drama/horror? an
action-packed thriller? a comedic parody? It doesn't
know, the actors sure as hell didn't know, and the viewers don't know either.
Not that they have time to think about it in between trying to decipher the
plot.
The acting was neither good nor bad. I'm quite sure most of the
people hired to play vampires can act fine, but you'd never know it from this
movie. Half of them have no lines or actions or anything. My theory is that
it's hard to close one's mouth around the fake fangs, but it looked more like
all of the actors were standing with their mouths gaping in awe of how bad the
movie is. The best theory I have is that a lot was cut from the final version
of the film. Parts of it probably because of Aaliyah's tragic death, parts for
time or parts because they didn't have a good Korn song to overlay it with. I
don't really know, but if it is missing scenes,
it explains a lot--like why it makes no sense. I'm sure most of the actors saw
the final product and just gave up on acting; how could they get another decent
job with that stain on their resume?
Stuart Townsend could have been a brilliant Lestat if he lost the
accent, dyed in his hair, and had a better script. Sadly, that's true of most
of the actors. Aaliyah, despite all my early doubts, could have been wonderful.
Unfortunately, with the bad dialogue and silly costumes, it did not happen.
The soundtrack would be the movie's redeeming quality if I liked
Korn at all, which I really don't, and if the movie is at all redeemable, which
is really isn't. I did find it funny that Lestat's singing voice mysteriously
resembled that of Jonathan Davis. Some of the songs were good and the
instrumentals were good. Some of the costumes were good, although I think they
were implying Lestat didn't change his clothes once for the 30 years he spent
with Marius. Either that or he had many pairs of the same pants. The overabundance of special effects used in the film only add
to the chaotic confusion.
Perhaps the best actor in the film was Tiriel Mora, the guy who
played the Vampire Lestat's band manager, Roger. I give this
guy brownie points for pulling off such a ridiculous job and being funny about
it too. I mean, really, bringing Lestat victims? Lestat can't go do that
himself? The entire idea was absurd, but good ol' Tiriel--probably
thankful he didn't have to wear make up to look like he had two black eyes--did
wonderfully.
I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt and see how good it
was as a movie. However, it's even worse that way because at least if you've
read the book, you have some idea of what they're trying to do. Almost. I saw it with my friend Jeff, who has not read the
books. About half way through he was threatening to walk out because it was
such a bad
movie. "The book is better, right?" he asked. I slapped my forehead
and thought of all the people who will hate the VampChron as a result of this
film. You can run around screaming that it's an "artistic
interpretation" to me all you want, but 90% of the people who see it don't
know that. They think this is the book. At any rate, it's not artistic
until artistic means "chaotic, unwatchable crap."
In a World Without Interview
Perhaps the worst mistake the movie made was to go out of its way
to ignore the fact that Interview with the Vampire, or any events
therein, ever happened. I'm willing to bet a good amount of people who will see
the film will do so because of the IwtV movie. By reframing from even
mentioning its characters or events, viewers who are expecting a sequel will be
left stranded. Lestat's been alone since his time with Marius? But what about that whole thing with Louis? Or Daniel in the
car at the end?** I doubt it's coincidence that Daniel
and Louis are as far away from this movie as possible. Claudia's diary becomes
Lestat's journal, which is a fair enough shortcut for the story, but amusing
because it's as if she never existed. It's painfully obvious that they don't
want to be associated with that film.
The irony is that so much of this movie is reminiscent of IwtV.
The seen where Marius changes Lestat, the seen where he walks with Marius on
the beach, the seen where Lestat takes Jesse into the park--all it seemed as
though they took the scene, changed the
characters, and redid it for this film. But even then, none of these scenes
work so far out of context. They increase the amount of stuff in an already
overcrowded movie
Movie Lestat Vs. the Books or No Budget for
Hair Dye
And now, of course, the part of the review you've been waiting
for. Just how do I feel it compares to the books? And the simple answer is
"It doesn't." Sadly, much like Louis, I am not one for simple
answers. So here we go: (Whee)
First of all, I would have been 10 times happier with the
on-screen degradation of these books if the movie producers at least TRIED. The
single most obvious factor that they did not was hair. If you asked
Lestat to describe himself in one word, he's likely to skip "perfect"
and go with "blonde." Would it have been so hard to dye Stuart
Townsend's hair? If the actor was truly opposed, they could have purchased a
good wig for $50. But he wasn't even the only one. What happened to Marius'
hair? Another problem a wig would have fixed. David's supposed to be an old
man, not middle aged. They could have kept the same actor and just give him
grey hair. (I think for this movie, an actor who fits the right physical
description is just too much to ask.) Maharet's hair was red, but sort of a
light shade. Given how important that fact is, they
probably should have dyed it a shade brighter. Really, if these Clariol
commercials have such great hair, why can't a high budget movie? I spoke to my
friend Reina and we both would be willing to chip in for correct hair styles.
If sending Warner Bros. $20 would have gotten their Lestat blonde hair, I would
consider it a worthy investment.
Since the movie did not really follow the plot of the book, it's
safe to say plenty of changes were made. Some made sense, like moving Lestat's
concert to
I wanted David to be the cool, Faust-loving Head of the Talamasca
we all know and love to hate, but it just wasn't there. Sadly, that's true of
all the characters. It seemed as though all the actors were genuinely trying to
portray their characters as best they could, but how could they when all they
did was stand around?
Perhaps the worst part of the experience for me came near the end
when the elder vampires arrived on the set. I've been reading these books since
6th grade. I've read all of them twice and most more than that. I did not have
a clue who most of the vampires were. I felt stupid.
Pandora, for example, looked enough like her book counterpart that I
could guess, except she didn't say a word to Marius (or even stand near him).
Then she died, which didn't help my guess. Apparently that bushy blonde is
supposed to be Armand. My first guess was Eric; to be honest,
I only remember one thing about Eric from the books: he sneered. My second
guess was
Santino. Armand never entered my mind, as I was sure he was not in the movie. I
had no clue that scary dirty guy was Mael, but if he was Mael, why the heck
didn't he make Jesse a vampire?
And the ending? Why does Maharet
suddenly turn WHITE? That made no sense (then again, neither did much of the movie).
Why does Marius go to David Talbot's office? Does he kill David because he
knows about Lestat? Or does he just want to paint a portrait of him? Perhaps
David will give him tea and read him Faust, and Marius will kill
himself.
Not like there's ever going to be a movie version of Pandora for him to worry
about.
In Conclusion
All and all, I was not expecting it to be like the book. The naive
part of me held out some optimism, but not much. I was hoping that as a movie
in its own right, it would be something I could enjoy. After all, who doesn't
love seeing Lestat on screen?
Unfortunately, this movie is so bad I just can't. It's like a bad 90 minute
music video, only I've seen music videos with better plots.
I feel dumb for paying $8 to see it. I suggest you save yourself
the trouble. It's not even worth a $3 rental. Most importantly, it's not worth
the 90 minutes of your life. Do something more worthwhile.
*I'm just not particularly good
at it.
**That's a whole new rant.