Queen of the Damned is a lot like 1994’s Street Fighter: The Movie.
Both come with a ready-made group of fans who are curious (and forgiving) enough to pay at least matinee price to see their object of affection on screen, no matter how badly executed. Both feature a deceased person in an already-peculiar casting choice, selling just as many tickets out of morbid curiosity. And both are relentlessly, numbingly bad exercises in film, though Queen of the Damned is worse for its higher pretensions.
Anne Rice’s books have been eagerly devoured by disaffected youths and Goths for decades now, and this latest attempt at bringing her well-loved characters to the screen will probably anger the vast majority of them. A great deal of fanboy attention is likely to be paid to how closely the movie follows her Vampire Chronicles (as one who put away the books after I turned 16, I can’t say precisely, but it doesn’t deviate much from the Cliffs Notes version retained in my memory). It will most definitely anger everyone else.
The titular Queen is actually a minor character; the story really follows the anti-hero Lestat de Lioncourt, a 400-year-old vampire who has come to find eternity unbearable. When Lestat (Stuart Townsend) awakens in the present day, after several decades of bored slumber, he decides he wants to be a rock star. Yes, it’s that abrupt.
And what’s more, he’s coming out as a vampire, and wants to out all the other vampires in the world as well. They are not, for the most part, pleased (but possibly more from the tuneless death-metal and Townsend’s ridiculous Britain-by-Bulgaria accent). Among the potentially displeased is Lestat’s “maker” (or “sire,” in Buffy-verse) Marius, played by Vincent Perez.
Meanwhile, back at the Hall of Talamascans (yes, it’s that abrupt): young apprentice Jesse Reeves deduces that the lead singer of The Vampire Lestat really is a vampire, named Lestat. What are the Talamascans, exactly? In the film, these vague vampire/dark magic/mystery hunters are nothing more than a cheap excuse to delve into Lestat’s origins in a clumsy second exposition (covered in print by The Vampire Lestat, the second of Rice’s Chronicles, under the conceit of being Lestat’s journal).
During his formative years as a vampire, Lestat was sort of a troubled teenager, always wanting more than he could have, of blood, of prey, of praise, of contact outside the undead sphere, all of which are strictly forbidden. His violin playing briefly awakens a mysterious statue, which Marius later explains is the dormant form of Akasha, the mother of all vampires.
And therein lies the true, morbid appeal of Queen of the Damned. Akasha is played by the late R&B/pop star Aaliyah, who died in a small plane crash last fall after completing principal photography. Her death is built-in publicity, and will earn this film a much larger audience than it deserves. A lot of this film’s audience will come to bury Aaliyah, not to praise her, but she acquitted herself admirably. This is not to say she’d have been a fine actress, but her role is small and she plays it well, having little more to do than look like a beautiful, soulless creature who’s been a statue for a few millennia. (Raul Julia was much more interesting in Street Fighter; he died a happy man full of chewed-off scenery.)
Townsend ostensibly gets top billing, but that depends largely upon what television station you saw the commercial on; his role is certainly the largest, but aside from looking reasonably good in leather pants he is woefully unsuited to the part. Tom Cruise played the role in 1994’s Interview with a Vampire, and while he might not have been ideal either, he’s a hundred times more charismatic. Townsend might be talented, but there are ways to act “boredom” without acting boring and he didn’t use any of them.
So much of the vampire mythos revolves around the sexual nature of sucking blood and the hedonistic enjoyment of it (both sucker and suck-ee), and so much of Lestat’s character is wrapped up in the loss of that pleasure and the ensuing ennui that drives him to … well, to nearly every action he takes, from creating other vampires to becoming a rock star. But there is no pleasure whatsoever in Lestat, but also no depth, not even a hint of self-loathing. Nor is there any pleasure in watching this film; none of the characters (or even the actors) seem to be enjoying it.
Lestat’s attraction to humanity could have been much more interesting, but coming as it does in the incredibly wooden form of Marguerite Moreau as Jesse, it fizzles as fast as their supposed chemistry. Moreau’s greatest credit to date was as “Connie” in all three Mighty Ducks films. Of course, Joshua Jackson made great strides post-Ducks, but he’s riding on talent, not looks. Her callow Jesse would be a great match for the dullard Lestat if anyone could stay awake long enough to care.
Allegedly Anne Rice offered to draft a screenplay for free and was turned down; Cruise also turned down the chance to reprise his role as Lestat. As it turns out, this film was made with novice screenwriters, a barely fledged director, untested young leads, B-list supporting players like Vincent Perez, and “can’t miss” material with a built-in fanbase – how could it go wrong?! Really, the answer is now, how couldn’t it? There is so much that is so wrong with this film it’s embarrassing.
The script is awkward, relying heavily on voice-over tracks and the clumsy double exposition, to say nothing of the savagely predictable conclusion. The C-list plot merits so little time in the film it would have been forgotten if not for the overly telegraphed introduction and Lena Olin’s inclusion in the credits. The special effects are only “special” if you’re awed by pilot lights. The film bounces between Jesse and Lestat as protagonists, but makes neither sympathetic enough to deserve our attention. Honestly, if they’d cast this film out of local chapters of “Vampire: the Masquerade” they could have coaxed out better performances, ones with at least a hint of passion and sincerity.
The film itself looks as cold, affected, and adolescent as its characters. There’s an ad on TV these days, mocking perfume ads to sell cars, and Queen of the Damned brings to mind nothing so much as that artificial, “eau de toilette” aesthetic. It’s an 111-minute ad for “Sangria – the scent of Goth.”
Reviewed by Sarah Stanek
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