By Rob. Walton
One shouldn't speak ill of the dead. Fortunately, Aaliyah doesn't warrant criticism in the second Vampire Lestat movie to make it to the screen (following 1994's Interview With the Vampire). In fact, most of the excitement hinges on our anticipation of the late R&B sensation's impending on-screen arrival as super-vampire Akasha. It's just too bad the titular, type-A bloodsucker doesn't show up until halfway through the otherwise anemic movie.
In the meantime, after a 200-year hibernation in a New Orleans mausoleum the Vampire Lestat -- who has shed Tom Cruise's skin in favor of Stuart Townsend's -- is well rested and raring to buck the unwritten vampire code of existing unnoticed in the shadows. To wit, he strikes a Faustian deal with a London goth band, assumes lead vocals and introduces himself to the world as the Vampire Lestat. Most chalk up the phenomenal Antichrist superstar as another MTV gimmick, but not plucky vampire hunter Jesse (Marguerite Moreau), who becomes ensorcelled by the enigmatic sex symbol and feels inexplicably drawn to him. While he's busy draining groupies of their blood, she seeks him out in London's vampire hangouts, jeopardizing her very mortality.
Being a rock star allows Lestat to bask in the spotlight, but waking the all-powerful, centuries-dormant Egyptian queen Akasha will allow him to live in the daylight. The trouble is, she can incinerate rival vampires with a smoldering look and prefers to live in a world uncluttered by humans. His alignment with Akasha makes them the biggest threat to both mortals and vampires alike, setting the stage for a showdown of computer-graphic proportions (and a catfight that never materializes).
Lestat's industrial videos and leather-and-mesh stage persona conjure up alterna-pinup Trent Reznor. Lestat's powerful electro-dirges, with titles such as Forsaken, Slept So Long and Redeemer, were written (and dubbed) by Korn frontman Jonathan Davis (although on the soundtrack CD, the songs are covered by members of Disturbed, Orgy and Marilyn Manson, respectively). All of this drapes a shroud of authenticity over the whole effort, which nevertheless seesaws precariously between true goth and soft camp. Where Interview With the Vampire targeted general audiences, this is more in league with The Crow sequels, currying a select cult following. Moreover, while Neil Jordan managed to latch onto Anne Rice's sardonic sense of humor to save Interview With the Vampire from a fatal self-importance, Queen of the Damned director Michael Rymer (In Too Deep) serves it to us straight-up, failing to mine the droll premise that the media would so nonchalantly bring the demon into our living rooms. He favors instead to focus on the actors' taut, sinewy abdomens to distract us from the convoluted plot that is presented as a series of pronouncements about what will happen next.Irish actor Stuart Townsend, who could pass for Elijah Wood's wayward older brother, has enough screen presence to arouse interest, but the porcelain Moreau (The Mighty Ducks, Wet Hot American Summer) isn't fleshed out enough for us to have a stake in her melodramatic fate. Still, it's Aaliyah we're here to see, and, as Akasha, she puts the vamp in vampire, slinking around like a serpentine harem girl with dislocated hips. She's eerily larger than life and potently seductive. Regardless, after Queen of the Damned builds to its showdown of the undead, what lingers in the mind is a wickedly over-the-top image of Lestat axing the neck of an attacking vampire, then kicking the body out from under its head. It's this sort of excess, however devilishly pleasing, that calls attention to the otherwise mundane exhuming of so many other macabre vampire clichés.