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    		•

    FILMS

    Queen of the Damned (2002)
  • Starring Aaliyah, Stuart Townsend, Marguerite Moreau, Vincent Perez, Paul McGann, Lena Olin

  • Directed by Michael Rymer

    • Lame. Lame. Lame. Lame. Lame. Lame. Lame. Lame. Lame. Lame. Lame. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. I want to claw my eyes out and perform incredible feats of self-destruction for putting myself through the agony that is this piece of cinematic pooh.

    Do you see where I'm coming from on this review? There are no two ways to slice the Queen of the Damned cake. Nope. There's only one way—and that's the sucky way!

    I have never read Anne Rice's book, but it if it is anything remotely close to this film, then someone should go over to her house, right now, and break all of her pencils and pee on her computer that she may never write another word again. If the film is a bastardization of the book, then I offer my sincere condolences to Ms. Rice. (But you just watch yourself, missy. We're watching you!)

    I'm guessing that the book is much better than the film, or at least tells the story in a more believable manner. It better, because just thinking about this movie makes me angry. I have never turned off a movie. I have never walked out of a movie. (The closest I've ever come to walking out of a movie was Natural Born Killers, but that's a story for another time.) Queen of the Damned almost didn't make it. I was ready to shut off the DVD player and throw the disc out the window. Yes, it's not that I just don't like this film—I actively HATE this film. I barely had the patience to sit through 101 minutes, which quite frankly felt more like 101 hours.

    There are some movies that are just stupid, but you forget them the minute the credits roll. Nope, not Queen of the Damned. It sits in your consciousness and preys on your brain. It constantly reminds you how bad it was and then kicks you in the balls for having watched it. After watching Queen of the Damned, you'll hate yourself much of the time. It's just a side effect of the film. (They really should've mentioned this before I rented it.)

    This was supposed to be Aaliyah's breakout role. People talked about it for months and months. And then she dies in tragic plane crash. Queen came out shortly thereafter and people hyped the film even more, because she had died so recently. I hate to pee on someone's grave. I really do. But Aaliyah is awful in this film. I also hate to pee on the living's leg, but Stuart Townsend is horrible, too. Neither of them are scary or tragic or romantic or troubled or angsty or even gothic. They're just lame. Everything they do it forced and trite and lame.

    The plot has something to do with the vampire Lestat awakening from a long sleep and rising to world-wide fame via the rock and roll. That's right, he's in a band, man! Groovy vampire jingles. (Yawn.) He's pretending to be a vampire in front of everyone. And other vampires feel this threatens them, so they want to kill him. Somewhere in there we get to see some of Lestat's backstory that was hinted at in Interview With the Vampire.

    A few points of note: A) the whole "vampires pretending to be vampires in front of a big audience" was already done in Interview, and done a hell of a lot more believable; B) with today's paparazzi that infiltrate every aspect of celebrity's lives (a practice which I find reprehensible) I find it incredibly difficult to believe that no one realizes he's killing his "backstage groupies" and sucking their blood; C) threatened by other vampires...blah blah blah, already seen it in the first one; D) in Interview, Lestat tells us that he's going to give Louis the choice he never had, i.e., in becoming a vampire...this is a very tantalizing nugget that promised a wonderful backstory which Queen of the Damned takes and completely destroys by making Lestat's backstory as uninteresting as possible.

    Boring, boring, boring, lame, lame, lame! Lame, I tell you! The funniest thing on the DVD is that there's a LOAD of "special features" and "deleted scenes." Like after watching an hour and a half of crap, I want to watch the crap that even the director deemed too crappy to put in the final version? Puh-lease! I just wish they had deleted more scenes. Like...all of them.

    The long and the short of this review is: Don't see this movie. Just don't. It's not a "so bad it's good" film. It's wanting in every possible way. There are no redeemable features in Queen of the Damned. You'll hate yourself if you watch this. Rent anything else. You have been warned.