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Queen
Of The Damned
Main
Cast:
Lestat - Stuart Townsend
Akasha - Aaliyah Haughton
Jesse - Marguerite Moreau
Maharet - Lena Olin
Marius- Vincent Perez
Pandora - Claudia Black
Khayman - Bruce Spence
Armand - Matthew Newton
David Talbot - Paul McGann
Mael - Christian Manon
Enkil - Peter Olsen
The tragic
death of a films star has often helped the box office draw.
One only has to look at the openings of The Crow
and Brainstorm following the death of their stars
Brandon Lee and Natalie Wood. Hollywood is not always known
for being a sensitive and understanding industry, so the recent
release of Queen of the Damned has raised some
eyebrows in film circles. For those who are not familiar with
the story, the film is based on Anne Rices Vampire Chronicles,
which became the film Interview with a Vampire.
The sequel picks up with the Vampire Lestat (Stuart Townsend),
who has awaken from a decades long sleep to become of all
things, a rock musician. The film then flashes back in time
to Lestats early years as a vampire and his training
under his master Marius (Vincent Perez). During his training,
Lestat learns about the Queen of the Damned named Akasha and
discovers that she possessed absolute power, and like himself,
a thirst not to hide her existence and true nature from the
world.
If you are not confused yet, do not worry, it gets worse.
There is also a scholar named Jesse (Margurite Moreau) who
is like a vampire groupie and seeks to learn all she can from
Lestat. Lestat also has his career to think about and a pending
concert in Death Valley takes up most of his time. The fact
that ever vampire on the planet wants to bleed him dry for
exposing them and their secrets in his lyrics is of little
concern to him.
What follows is an extremely boring and uninspired collection
of scenes with little to no cohesion to them. The weak plot
is made worse by acting that is stiffer then the corpses in
the film and accents that seem to be inspired by Saturday
morning cartoons. Further hindering the film is a total lack
of chemistry amongst the cast and lines and deliveries that
elicited groans from the audience at my screener. The tragic
thing about this film is not that I had to sit through it;
it is the way the filmmakers have decided to exploit the late
singer Aaliyah in the films publicity. She is front and center
on all adds for the film, but has less than 15 minutes of
screen time. This has caused some outrage as the tagline All
She Wants Is Hell On Earth is not in the best of taste
regarding an individual who passed tragically and recently.
The film had supposedly been sitting waiting to be released,
and a direct to video release seemed likely. Sadly, it seems
that someone thought they could make a buck from releasing
one of Aaliyahs last works and have given audiences
a film that is not only insensitive to her passing, but is
a film that is easily one of the worst I have seen. Tom Cruise
had the good sense to stay away from reprising his role of
Lestat in this film, and audiences should demand this film
be buried never to see the light of day again.