"Michael Rymer's Film of Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned"

Anne Rice has been writing bestsellers for more than twenty
years, beginning with her first groundbreaking novel, which
was "Interview with the Vampire", the first in her long
series of "Vampire Chronicles". Over the years, Rice has
had her ups and her downs, mostly having to do with the
varying quality of her novels, but for the most I have
found her books to be highly engaging and fascinating to
read.

"Interview with the Vampire" was published in 1976, and
director Neil Jordan brought it to the screen in 1994, with
Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in the roles of Lestat and Louis
respectively. The film garnered fairly good reviews, and
great box office, over $100 million. This all but insured
that another of Rice's "Vampire Chronicles" would be filmed
and adapted for the screen. And now, after 8 long years of
waiting, we have our next installment in the series, which
just so happens to be "Queen of the Damned".

An interesting point is that "Queen of the Damned" is based
not only on the book of the same name in Rice's series, but
also on the second book in the series "The Vampire Lestat".
The first half of the film plays as a partial adaptation of
"The Vampire Lestat", while the remaining portions of the
movie plays out as a minor interpretation of "Queen". This
does create an abundance of plot, but sadly, the films
runnning length is under 2 HRS, so while we see many events
and storylines, for the most part they are glossed over.
That is not to say that this is a bad film, because it is
not, and it is highly entertaining.

"Queen" has had a slightly troubled production history and
is known as the final film of ill fated signer Aaliyah.
The film was supposed to have been released in October of
2001, but some post production tinkering pushed the release
date all the way back to February 22, 2002. The final nail
through the proverbial coffin was the death of singer and
young starlet Aaliyah, which occured in a small plane crash
after she finished a music video in the Bahamas. Watching
the film, your attention rapt to the screen when Aaliyah
comes on, you can't help but wish she was still alive, as
she obviously has so much talent that will forever go
untapped.

"Queen of the Damned" begins with fleeting images of the
statue of Queen Akasha, deep in slumber. Next, the Vampire
Lestat is awoken in his New Orleans crypt by the sound of
rock n' roll, and he promptly joins a band, renames it the
Vampire Lestat, and they become a sensation.

In another storyline, a mortal woman, Jesse Reeves, has
dreams of her vampiric Aunt Maharet, a good vampire, who
sends her away for safekeeping to work for the paranormal
agency known as the Talamasca. Jesse yearns to know what
life as a vampire is like, and she wants Lestat to show her
after she reads through his journal.

Through flashback, as Jesse reads Lestat's journal, we see
the tale of how Lestat was brought to an island mansion by
his maker, Marius, and how Marius turned Lestat into what
he is today. After Marius shows Lestat how to feed, and
explains that they must always keep their true selfs hidden
from mortals, Lestat stumbles upoon the secret room in
Marius mansion, one which houses the slumbering statue
bodies of the first two vampires, Queen Akasha and King
Enkil. Lestat plays the violin for Akasha, and she lets
Lestat feed off of her, which gives him great strength.
When Marius discovers what has happened he takes the king
and queen and leaves forever.

Lestat is also having his first and only live concent, in
Death Valley, and many angry vampires, angry because of
Lestat giving away vampire secrets in his songs, will be
there to kill him. But something big is going to happen as
is seems Lestat's music has awakened Akasha, the queen of
all who are damned. She has killed her King Enkil for
food, and she seeks Lestat to be her new ruler. But will
all the "good" vampires in the world allow that to happen?

There is quite a lot of plot at work in "Queen", and that's
understandable because it tries to cram the plots of two
rather large novels into a film under two hours in length.
While I was familiar with the novels, and their plotlines,
it was easy for me to understand what was going on and why
the characters were the way they were. Others may not be
able to understand, but that really doesn't matter, as you
can just sit and watch all the neet special effects and
and snappish dialogue.

Acting in "Queen of the Damned" is quite good. Stuart
Townsend is very good as Lestat, as he kills, sings, and
cavorts around the screen in various poses; he snarls and
snaps, bites, and is good for the part. Aaliyah is in a
word, excellent as Queen Akasha, who keeps your attention
glued to the screen during her few scenes. Marguerite
Moreau is good as Jesse Reeves, although her characters is
a bit muddled and why she wants to be a vampire beyond the
fact that it seems all vamps are cool is never explained.
Vincent Perez makes a rather good Marius, and he plays
with the role, getting in some good lines and he has a nice
little twist at the end which gets a laugh. Paul McGann
does what he can with his tiny role as Talamascan David
Talbot, although he has under 5 minutes of screentime.
Lena Olin is decent, but severaly underused as the ancient
vampire Maharet, and she doesn't figure prominently until
the closing moments. Christian Manon as Mael, Claudia
Black as Pandora, Bruce Spence as Khayman, and Matthew
Newton as Armand are adequate, but only has a few scant
seconds of screentime, mostly during the battle to the
death with Akasha. All in all, the cast is quite good and
impressed me more than I thought they would.

Michael Rymer's direction is good, employing some sparsely
used, but effect special effects and visuals which are
faintly similar to "The Matrix". He keeps the film at a
rapid pace, so you are never bored, and he films everything
in a lush, beautiful manner which makes the film look fresh
and it certainly is never dull. Many people have been
saying that you can tell Rymer is a music video director,
but that is not a bad thing, as all the scenes have visual
flash and verve. Rymer does a good job with the material
he was given.

Ian Baker provides the wonderful cinematography as he makes
the picture look more that just good, he makes it look like
a fantastic, one of a kind visual extravaganza. He uses
slow motion, speed photography, whoosh effects, and much
more. Baker helps to give the picture some edge, and he
definetely makes everything which appears on camera great,
so as you never want to look away from what's going on.

Graham "Grace" Walker's production sets look fantastic, my
favorite being Akasha and Enkil's secret undergroubd tomb.
It consists of a long walkway surrounded by water, and two
huge thrones, with Akasha and Enkil, one on each side. The
Italian palazzo Akasha takes Lestat to, and the tub they
make love in are also impressive. And the many mansions
and houses that appear look good, and are beautful to look
at. Walker succeeds in creating beautiful sets for the
actors to rome around on, and they add some atmosphere to
the proceedings.

Costume designer Angus Strathie created lush, good looking
costumes for the actors to wear. Lestat parades around in
a variety of clothes, but wears leather pants for much of
his screentime. Akasha appears in full headdress, with a
gold breatplate, and a gold skirt. Maharet gets to wear a
long red gown during the final minutes of the film. And
the vampire Marius gets to wear red velvet capes for all of
his scenes. There is a nice variety to the costumes, and
the actors look good wearing them.

While "Queen of the Damned" is certainly being billed as a
movie starring Aaliyah, and while she does have a very
important role, she is not the star. Stuart Townsend as
Lestat, has the main role in the film, as he appears in
about every scene and is the focal point of the film. But
Aaliyah is the reason you should see the film, as when she
pops up on screen, my eyes were glued, I couldn't look
away from her. The scene where she strolls into the bar
of vampires, shaking her hips, baring her fangs, and rips
a vamps heart out and eats it is worth the price of the
movie ticket alone.

Anne Rice is my all time favorite author, and I was afraid
that the film would mangle her source material to no end,
and while there were many changes, omissions, and additions
to Rice's story, the essential were still there. "Queen of
the Damned" is a rolicking, fast past, visual effects
filled blast through vampiredom. I highly enjoyed it, and
although many critics and viewers have posted all over the
internet that they hate the film, I loved it, and have seen
it twice already. If you want a good time, run to the
local theater and see "Queen of the Damned".

"Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned" is Rated R for vampire
violence.