“Boo……”
Something of a sequel to 1994’s Interview With The Vampire and cobbled together from the second (The Vampire Lestat) and third (Queen Of The Damned) novels of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, 2002’s Queen Of The Damned is a mess. Stuart Townsend takes over the role of Lestat from Tom Cruise and Aaliyah portrays the titular character, known to her vampire children as Akasha. The rest of the cast includes Marguerite Moreau, Vincent Perez, Lena Olin, Paul McGann, Claudia Black, and Christian Manon. Antonio Banderas’ role of Armand is taken over by Matthew Newton.
In the film, Lestat awakens in the modern world and is inspired by…..nu metal. He forms a band with some mortals and his music in turn gives new life to Akasha, the first vampire and the mother of all vampires. Lestat also challenges his fellow vampires to come out of the shadows and expose their kind to humanity. This causes a rift between the vampire race, with many vampires intent on killing Lestat and Akasha wanting to lay waste to any vampire that stands in her way as she drinks all of humankind dry. Hoping to stop Akasha is a small group of ancient vampires that include Marius (Perez), Maharet (Olin), Armand (Newton), Pandora (Black), and others. Oh, and then there’s the human caught in the middle of it all, Jesse (Moreau), who begins the film as a researcher intent on finding out if Lestat is really a vampire and winds up as one of the primary pieces in the film’s climax. The plot is all over the place, downright silly at times, but there are a few saving graces for the film.
Townsend does a really good job as Lestat. He’s not quite as flamboyant or sadistically funny as Cruise’s Lestat, but he works in this film. Perez and Olin also give very great performances. Newton looks more like Armand from the books, but he doesn’t have much of a role in this film. Neither does Claudia Black as Pandora. Aaliyah slithers around a lot and doesn’t do much else. She’s the most powerful ancient vampire around and, to be quite honest, gets taken out rather easily despite being able to set vampires on fire at will. Poor Marguerite Moreau sucks the life out of every scene. She’s a much better actress than this film shows her to be, and that’s a real shame.
As someone who read the first few entries in the Vampire Chronicles, I’ve always believed that Lestat becoming a rock star was a ridiculous idea. It was so ridiculous to me that I gave up on the series. Of course, the film took things a step farther by having Lestat become a nu metal rock star and that’s even more unbelievable. It’s equal parts dumb MTV video and mild horror. In short, this movie is pretty bad.
Watch Queen Of The Damned for the performances of Townsend, Olin, Perez, and Newton. Skip it for the bad music, terrible plot, and weak ending.
Ken's Alternate Universe! 