Queen of the Damned

Starring: Stuart Townsend, Aaliyah, Marguerite Moreau, Vincent Perez, Paul McGann, Lena Olin
Directed by: Michael Rymer
Rating: R
Genre: Horror
2002

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Lestat (Stuart Townsend) decides to become a rockstar and announces the existence of vampires to the world. His music causes the queen of all vampires to rise from her slumber.

Review:

Tim: I enjoyed Interview With the Vampire, so even though this film looked fairly low quality, I was looking forward to the continued adventures of Lestat. Unfortunately, this film is completely terrible. It's a rushed, fatally flawed movie that does very little right. I was actually surprised by how much I disliked this film. There's almost no redeeming qualities to it.

The first problem that I had is that Stuart Townsend is no Tom Cruise. Cruise wisely stayed away from this film, which allowed Townsend to take over the role of Lestat. Unfortunately, he doesn't have 5% of the charisma or the talent that Cruise has. I'll probably sound a bit too harsh here, but I just think Townsend is a complete zero. His performance was yawn-inducing and dull. The guy just has no talent at all. Every second of his screen time was completely forgettable. He makes an awful Lestat, which immediately hurt this film.

Aaliyah isn't much better as the titular Queen of the Damned. She certainly looks the part, so I give her a great deal of credit for that. Unfortunately, her acting ability is suspect, so she doesn't add much to the film. It should be noted that this was only her second acting gig, and she did show some potential. Had she not been killed in that awful plane crash, she could have eventually done some good work on screen. Unfortunately, her performance just doesn't cut it here.

I'm not sure how many changes were made from Anne Rice's books (I do know that this film is a combination of two books), but there's something seriously wrong with the story. Almost nothing happens in the film, and then we find ourselves at the climactic finale. I honestly have a hard time remembering what took place over the first hour. I know there was a lot of talking, some music, but most of the film is utterly forgettable. There's nothing in the entire film that made me interested or caused me to sit up in my chair. The events of the movie are shockingly boring.

The special effects are pretty awful, too. I'm not sure whose idea it was to have the vampires move like that, but it looks completely ridiculous. The movie tries to depict them moving quickly, but it just looks so awful and cheesy. I would have laughed every time I saw that, but the whole thing was just far too depressing. The visual effects in this film are pretty atrocious.

The best part of the movie are those rare moments when you feel like some of Rice's world managed to make it up on screen. Things like learning more about Lestat's past and some of the mythology of the world are interesting. Unfortunately, these are too few and far between.

Queen of the Damned is just a terrible movie in almost every single way. The film was rushed into production, and it shows. I do not understand why studios think rushing films is a good idea. Yes, it might meet the deadline, but it almost always results in a product that is crap. Everyone involved with this film should be completely ashamed, because it's an awful piece of trash. I felt like I wasted my life with this movie.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 3.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend:
Interview With the Vampire