La reine des damnés

Ok, so this is not a brilliant movie. Its not even a very good movie. But it is a bit of a guilty pleasure. Kind of half vampire movie, half rock video.

The reason I like Queen of the Damned? Stuart Townsend as Lestat - he is utterly beautiful in this film. Sexy, seductive, with model-looks. The man looks the part and he plays the part very well too. You can understand why characters are seduced by him. He totally oozes that kind of sexy rockstar charm.

I know the movie is literally nothing like the novel, and it garnered a LOT of criticism for that, as well as it generally not being a particularly great movie even if you treat it as stand-alone.

I tend to put this movie on when I fancy watching something a little silly that doesn't require an awful lot of thinking about. Its kind of early 2000s trash at its finest.

As a fan of the novels and the movie Interview with a Vampire, I spent a good half hour yelling at the screen before realizing the following:

1. These are not Anne Rice's vampires. Every character is different, despite their names (The only one to nail a character was Vincent Perez, the highlight of the movie as Marius. Good job.)

2. The plot of the movie is not based on the books. It as if someone picked up a copy of The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned, opened to random pages, made assumptions, got bored and stopped reading, then wrote a screenplay.

3. The vampiric rules adhered to in the books are not followed in the movie. The vampires just do whatever is coolest. A certain vampire can't fly? Why not? And why not give him a trail?

Once you have acknowledged all these things, you can watch the movie. Have fun. This is not heavy stuff like Interview with the Vampire. Watch Stuart Townsend dance around in a mesh shirt and tight pants, and applaud when his shirt disappears, or, if you like it better, watch Aaliyah gyrate in a scanty metal bra contraption. It's what these two do best.

Embrace its plot holes and stupid dialog (which lends itself to random quoting), sing along to the entertaining rock songs. Try and figure out what each of the ancients are named. Pride yourself if you can provide any explanation for what happens at the end of the movie, because "trimming to help the pace" leaves the ending fairly incomprehensible, especially to those who have read the books.

Be sure to watch the extra features, the gag reel for laughs and the deleted scenes if you want to know what happened in the movie. Also try the various documentaries, which are entertaining when they throw in weird special effects while people are speaking.

Perfect for a loud, popcorn-filled Friday night with the friends!

Prindora (Eibzesii)

I honestly did like "Queen of the Damned", despite it going on more of a MTV twist and not being faithful to the novels, come on. It was just a good movie for horror fans. I felt that it had good ideas and worked pretty well. With some new coming actors and a sexy performance of Aaliyah, the film really couldn't go wrong.

We have a new Lestat, Stewart Townsend, who is just now starting to be more noticed from his last film with Kate Hudsen "About Adam". A lot of people were disappointed that Tom Cruise did not reprise his role, but to be honest as much as Tom did a great job, he couldn't have fit this time into the Rock -N- Roll Lestat. Stewart captured that sexiness and that sleek look of cockiness that was just perfect. All though yes, I didn't really like the romantic side the director took on him, he's still one of our favorite vampires.

Aaliyah, no, she didn't have the look of Akasha, Queen of all that is damned. But she did a good job and was so incredibly beautiful. Her tragic death had just happened before they released "Queen of the Damend" into theaters, RIP! This movie captured her beauty and talent very well. She was so sleek and just sexy during her dancing scene in the pub with the other vamps before her massacre.

There was one very bothersome actress, the one who played Jesse. She did so badly! Her lines, were, she just... gah! She was horrible, you'll have to trust me on that. Otherwise, I think you'll enjoy it, please! Don't compare the book, I like to say to people that if you want the book, read the book. This is a movie and it's not always going to be faithful, it just wanted a hipper look for a younger audience. Yes, of course the books are better, but if you're just looking for a fun horror flick, I'd recommend.

8/10

This is a movie that is a bit hard to review. The reason is that there is a HUGE gap between movie quality and soundtracks.

It is siple, the movie is just ok and worth watching. Just do it.

Just watch the movie on, BUT.... You need a good sound system. Not a "half baked" soundboard that sounds like s$it. The movie is just ok as it is, it is a vampire movie that is worth watching at least ones just for the movie it self. But what makes it worth watching a few more times is the music in the movie. Is simply is epic. It is so epic that I have watched the movie 4 times and I dont know how many times I have listen to the sountrack on other medias. It is EPIC! But you really need a good audio system to enjoy it fully.

I recomand you to watch the movie at least ones,

Combining The Vampire Lestat and the Queen of the Damned novels into one screenplay was, ahem, damned to suffer massive story cuts because of the intricate and detailed background of a dozen or so characters involved. The amount of detail always was the strength of the Vampire Chronicles, in my opinion, and they were certainly worth the read.

That said, the question remains, without the detail and extra characters, can the basic story of Lestat's re-awakening of the Queen of all vampires be entertaining and sufficient enough to sustain itself? While I can not answer the question with a glowing appraisal, I will certainly admit that it did a decent job of combining all of the basic elements into a stand alone movie. The fact that this movie can stand on it's own without any ties to the prequel, Interview with the Vampire, is one of it's assets. You do not need any fore-knowledge of the characters, books, or prequel movie in order to watch this.

Even though it fits into it's own little package does not mean it was packed very well. There were some plot holes, some of which could have been filled by simply restoring the "Ancients" scenes that were on the dvd. I understand, as the dvd points out, that they were left out because it introduced another subplot and characters that would add unnecessary confusion. While I agree with their reasoning, I do think they should have somehow salvaged the scene so that while the introductions of the ancients would have been left out, Maharet's few lines about Akasha's reign of destruction and the vampire's responsibility should have remained. They would have added a needed sense of urgency and motivation that would have made the final confrontation with Akasha and the ancients a bit more reasonable and satisfying.

The character of Jessie is supposed to be the human link for the viewer to empathize through as they are taken into the world of vampires. In some scenes, this works adequately, but on the whole, Jessie's motivations, while they are explained, seem kind of empty. I am not sure if I can fault the actress or script, but when the movie was over, I still felt ambivalent about the character's experiences.

There were other elements that were not as fleshed out as they could be. The paranormal Talamasca needed a bit more background about their vampire tracking as did the character of Maharet and her family tree. Like Jessie, they were given some explanation, but I think a couple more lines of dialogue would have helped.

As I mentioned, the movie did a decent job of the basic story, but massive changes were made from the source material. Characters were dropped completely, or merged together, and huge sections of character history were removed. Most notably, Lestat's history is extremely compacted and revised. Nonetheless, there are some things that remained that I thought were done pretty well. The character of Lestat in this picture is rebellious and reckless which is more true to the character than he was portrayed in Interview. Lestat's re-awakening and concert scenes were exactly like I had envisioned when I originally read the book. The character of Akasha was also as I pictured and a very good casting choice.

If you are a fan of the books, and you need the twins, Gabriel, Magnus, and crew, you are going to have difficulty sitting through this. If, on the other hand, you can set that aside and view this as a vampire movie of it's own, unrelated to the chronicles, you will probably enjoy this for the stand-alone vampire flick that it is.

In summary, worth the rental.