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Movies / On DVD / The Queen of the Damned
The Queen of the Damned

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The Queen of the Damned (2002)

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Reviews Counted:127

Fresh:21

Rotten:106

Average Rating:3.9/10

Consensus: A muddled and campy MTV-styled vampire movie with lots of eye candy and bad accents.

Runtime: 1 hr 41 mins

Genre: Action/Adventure

Synopsis: A deep, dark, stylistic adaptation of the book by Anne Rice from her hugely popular series of vampire novels, THE QUEEN OF THE DAMNED is like a Nine Inch Nails rock video. Undernourished goth club... A deep, dark, stylistic adaptation of the book by Anne Rice from her hugely popular series of vampire novels, THE QUEEN OF THE DAMNED is like a Nine Inch Nails rock video. Undernourished goth club kids are the focus of the film and they all look great with piercings, net t-shirts, tattoos, dyed hair, and dour facial expressions. The film follows the celebrity rock star Vampire Lestat (Stuart Townsend), who has emerged from 200 years of solitude to show his face--and his vampire powers--to the world. He has assembled a goth band, makes regular media appearances, and has enchanted the world with his otherworldly mystique. In addition, he has planned one of the most controversial publicity stunts of all eternity: he is holding a one-night rock concert in California's Death Valley, inviting all vampires young and old (along with his extensive fan-base of mortals) to join him. As a side bar to this activity, the mortal Jesse, a young woman who works for the Talamasca society studying paranormal occurrences, has found a secret portal to the vampire world: a London pub where vamps hang out. There she meets Lestat and is instantly smitten with him, insisting on travelling to Death Valley to see his concert. Also en route to the show is the sleek and sexy Egyptian mother of all vampires Queen Akasha (Aaliyah), who has recently arisen from a 2,000-year nap in order to unleash hell on earth. From a distance, a wise band of vampires watch telepathically as Akasha, Lestat, and Jesse converge in Death Valley. But what nobody knows is that the headstrong Lestat, who is the most impulsive and irresponsible of immortal beings but practically a god in the eyes of mortals, is the only one who can defeat Akasha and save the world. [More]

Starring: Stuart Townsend, Aaliyah, Marguerite Moreau, Vincent Perez

Starring: Stuart Townsend, Aaliyah, Marguerite Moreau, Vincent Perez, Lena Olin

Director: Michael Rymer

Director: Michael Rymer
Screenwriter: Scott Abbott, Giulio Petroni
Producer: Jorge Saralegui
Composer: Richard Gibbs
Studio: Warner Bros.

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Reviews for The Queen of the Damned

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1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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Wishy-washy and hampered by cliche, sitting through this is like enduring a vampire life: it's one long wait for the end.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
12/30/06
Empire Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Rice's complex, sprawling novel is rendered virtually incomprehensible by a combination of lacklustre direction, risible dialogue and shoddy effects.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
02/09/06
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

It’s only Aaliyah that makes it watchable. For vampire lovers and Goth Rockers only.

Full Review Source: ViewLondon | comment Comment
10/30/02
Matthew Turner
Matthew Turner
ViewLondon

It's loud, garish, very stupid ... and thoroughly enjoyable rubbish.

Full Review Source: Shadows on the Wall | comment Comment
08/12/02
Rich Cline
Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall

Muddled, trashy and incompetent

Full Review Source: UK Critic | comment Comment
04/21/02
Ian Waldron-Mantgani
Ian Waldron-Mantgani
UK Critic

Making 100 minutes seem like an eternity, Michael Rymer's film is deathly tedious.

Full Review Source: FilmFour.com | comment Comment
04/16/02
FilmFour.com
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

It all looks very weak, and my heart went out to the excellent Paul McGann, who has to play a occult researcher looking permanently appalled at what is happening. As well he might.

Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
04/15/02
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian [UK]
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Sums up all that's wrong with contemporary cinema: unsubtle to the point of obviousness, it reeks of MTV and relies on volume to get its point across.

Full Review Source: BBC | comment Comment
04/15/02
Richard Luck
Richard Luck
BBC
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Michael Rymer stages high-tech sequences combining gore, romance, and gothy music, and he has enough conviction to make what could have been very silly strangely provocative.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
10/20/09
Lisa Alspector
Lisa Alspector
Chicago Reader

Oh, boy, is this ever a doozy!

Full Review Source: Cinema Crazed | comment Comment
04/29/09
Felix Vasquez Jr.
Felix Vasquez Jr.
Cinema Crazed

It isn't great entertainment or camp, but pic sets its ambitions so low, it can't help partially delivering on them.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
09/15/08
Scott Foundas
Scott Foundas
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Aaliyah makes a brief but memorable posthumous appearance about an hour into the nearly incoherent proceedings, which are riddled with unintentional guffaws.

Full Review Source: Sacramento News & Review | comment Comment
08/07/08
Mark Halverson
Mark Halverson
Sacramento News & Review

Whatever life there is to the movie is what [Aaliyah] brings to it.

Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | comment Comment
09/22/07
Rob Gonsalves
Rob Gonsalves
eFilmCritic.com

The film is vampire roadkill.

Full Review Source: Rolling Stone | comment Comment
08/14/07
Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

Perhaps the sole reason to see this film is to pay final tribute to Aaliyah. Too bad it isn’t a better movie.

Full Review Source: 3BlackChicks Review | comment Comment
12/30/06
Kamal  'The Diva' Larsuel
Kamal 'The Diva' Larsuel
3BlackChicks Review

Overall this horror picture, based on Rice's novel, is no good, but lead stuart Townsend gives a far more compelling (and properly campy) performance than Tom Cruise did as Lestat in the high-profile companion piece, Interview With the Vampire.

Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | comment Comment
12/20/06
Emanuel Levy
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

Queen of the Damned is not a good film, but it's definitely a watchable one.

Full Review Source: Film Threat | comment Comment
12/06/05
Michael Dequina
Michael Dequina
Film Threat

Tom Cruise had the good sense to stay away from reprising his role of Lestat in this film.

Full Review Source: Film Threat | comment Comment
12/06/05
Gareth J. Von Kallenbach
Gareth J. Von Kallenbach
Film Threat
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Zap2it.com | comment Comment
02/24/04
Michael Szymanski
Michael Szymanski
Zap2it.com

Aaliyah steals the show as a villainous vampiric vixen in an otherwise ludicrous waste of a story.

Full Review Source: Radio Free Entertainment | comment Comment
01/15/04
Andrew Manning
Andrew Manning
Radio Free Entertainment
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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Latest News for The Queen of the Damned

December 18, 2008: Twilight and History's Coolest Vampires - An RT Guide
With the teenage nice guy vampire of Twilight catching the hearts of 12-16-year-old girls all over the world, it's time to cast a backward glance at style-leading vampire... More...

February 27, 2008: Anne Rice Says Her Vampire Chronicles Aren't Finished
In 2005, Anne Rice told the world she was finished writing about vampires -- but fans who lamented the end of her Vampire Chronicles may have something to celebrate. More...

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