Queen of the Damned (2002)

What a waste of my time!!!

Powerful

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

How could a movie with such high production values get so much wrong? 1. With exceptions of Mahatet and Akasha, the entire cast was, well, miscast! Lestat is constantly described by Anne Rice as tall (got that right), with long full blonde hair (oops!), and was French (oops again!) Lestat was turned into a vampire not by Marius, who was described as being very tall (oops!), with long flowing blonde hair - the Kelts that kidnapped him in the book kept him captive until his hair grew long. He was the illegitimate son of an Italian father by a Keltic slave woman. 2. Lestat was actually turned into a vampire by an old (as on he was old when he stole the blood from a vampire to make himself immortal) vampire, told Lestat a few basic things, gave him his wealth and a tower in Paris, then promptly killed himself by going into a fire. Lestat was now alone in Paris, having traveled there with the son of a rich merchant neighbor, Nicolo, who played the violin. 3. Lestat learned to love and play the violin, not from a random gypsy he met on a beach, but from watching and listening to his beloved childhood friend, Nicolo. 4. Lestat met Marius, not on an island as the vampire who brought Lestat immortality, but in Egypt, where Lestat had eventually wandered with Gabrielle, his mother, whom he had rescued from near death from consumption, turning her into a vampire as his companion. 5. Akasha was killed, not by Maharet drinking the last of her blood after Akasha had been drained by the other vampires at Maharet's compound, butby Maharet's tongueless, mute twin sister, Mekare, who tore Akasha's head off, taking the demon spirit into herself, not into Maharet. I can understand changing around a few things in a movie to make the plot run more smoothly, but to get so many things completely wrong, is just plain wrong! Blonde hair versus dark brown hair may not sound like much, but Lestat was known to be very vain about his appearance, and big brautiful fluffy long hair seems right - aside from the fact that Tom Cruise had long blonde hair in the prequel to this (albeit he was almost half a foot shorter than Stuart Townsend), and I doubt that list start would have died his hair brown every morning after having had blonde hair for so long! Another messed up element is one of Lestat's sidekicks, Louis, who was nowhere to be found in this movie. In her book, Anne Rice had Louis spend the night before the concery with the band at Lestat's secure compound in Carmel, California, and rode with them to the concert, which took place not in Death Valley but in San Framcisco. In her book, Marius is described as being of a towering height due to his Keltic forbears, even taller than Lestat's described 6 foot height. I don't know who wrote the script, but it wasn't Anne Rice...at times the actors seem to be speaking lines straight out of a bad soap opera. The movie us, at times, a fun one, but it would have been 10 times better had the scriptwriter kept to the story and to Anne Rice's characterizations. I was expecting so much more, but I was truly disappointed!

It says on the front cover of the DVD of 'Queen of the Damned' that it is the sequel to 'Interview With a Vampire' – you remember that – the smash hit movie, starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Everyone loved that. It was a hit! Unfortunately, 'Queen of the Damned' is only a sequel as it's using some of the same characters (characters, not actors – there's a difference) and set in the same universe, so to speak. Basically, it's not really a sequel. It's another vampire story written by Anne Rice following some of the characters who you might have seen before. Don't expect to see Tom or Brad in this one.However, just because it doesn't really follow on, doesn't make it a bad thing – a disjointed thing, but not a bad thing. But, in some ways, it's not really the film's fault. It's about a vampire who has got disillusioned with drinking people's blood over the centuries and has gone to sleep for hundreds of years. Now he's woken in the modern age and decided to 'out' all the other vampires and their blood-sucking ways. It goes without saying that the rest of the vamps don't take kindly to his outspoken ways and decide to take him out. So where does the Queen come into it? She doesn't. That much. Unfortunately she's only in it for two scenes because the young actress playing her tragically died while the film was being made, leaving the story lacking what should have been a big part of its central element.Plus it doesn't really do the book justice. I haven't read the book. I'm one of the many who just watches the film, but I've generally browsed through enough internet message boards to realise that a lot of die-hard fans of the source material didn't appreciate the transition to film.So, it's got its fair amount of negative points. And yet it's actually quite good. Not great, but somehow highly watchable (if you're into vampires in general). It should all be quite campy and yet Stuart Townsend plays the lead vamp pretty well and is actually fun to watch. Aaliyah, for the few scenes she's in, sizzles as the Queen of the undead. It would have been pretty good if she'd have been able to show what she can do all the way through the film.It's probably not a film you're going to want to see again and again, but if you're not totally bored with vampires after binge-watching box sets of 'True Blood' then take a look at vampires rocking out on stage and fighting each other in the chorus.

This film tried to be an adaptation of two Anne Rice's books that portrayed the life of Lestat, the vampire. Thus, the film shows his birth to the world of vampires and his connection with the vampire queen Akasha, who awakens from a secular sleep.It is, in theory, the continuation of the movie "Interview with the Vampire", although there is no connection between these two productions (remember that Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt starred in these film, which was a huge success). So, who expects "Queen of the Damned" will also be great is going to have a big disappointment. In fact, it's the worst vampire movies I've ever seen, sacrificing the dramatic and psychological depth of the characters in favor of a pop-rock approach of the vampire world, which seems to have been thought to sell the film to the teen audiences and not to make it better.Directed by Michael Rymer, this film has an unfortunate and shameful script by Scott Abbott and stars the singer Aaliyah (deceased shortly after the shootings) and Stuart Townsend in the lead roles. Despite this stars, the film goes from the grotesque to the comic, depicting the teenagers like a bunch of mentally retarded with serious identity affirmation problems. Ah, of course: if you read Rice's books, forget them. This movie failed to portray the books or his essence. Basically, it's a different story whit characters with the same names of the Rice's books. A shame, a tragedy: the great victim of this film's vampires was Anne Rice's stories.

Here is the thing about this movie. They get so much from the book wrong that you can't, and shouldn't, compare them. It isn't even on the same level as Interview with a Vampire and, again, should not be compared to it. If you want to watch and enjoy this film then you must take it as is. On its own. Or you will be angry, unsatisfied, sad, and lost. It is a beautiful film as just a film but as a film adaptation of a book it is the spawn of crap and the cousin of vomit. But again it is a great movie for itself and by itself. The actors did well for the script and description They were given and I honestly hope that in the future they will attempt to redo the vampire chronicles in film media again. But until then we have this to sedate our need to see the sexy brat prince.