I mean not really, but also kinda sorta. I watched this for our lady vampire week, now did I know exactly what to expect from Aaliyah in this movie? No. Did I expect at least the majority of the focus to be on her? Yes. So you can see where I'm coming from. But on deeper research and finding out not only was this a film adaptation of 2 Anne Rice novels but also the very depressing young death of Aaliyah right after principal photography, so the filmmakers had to use what they got it made more sense. And to be fair the movie isn't horrible by a long shot, it's one of the most early ass 2000s movies I've seen in my life and I love it for that, and while it has some muddy elements I'm still happy I saw it. We start with a kinda semi-sequel to Interview With A Vampire as we follow Lestat who is awoken after a century of slumber by the sounds of nu metal (yes I'm for real), as we jump back and forth seeing his vampiric origin and current position as a lead singer, who garners the attention of a young researcher named Jesse and the reawakening of one of the oldest vampires in history Akasha. It's a bit of a loose plot I have to admit, character motivations are not always clear, it's more a mood movie. I can see this so very clearly in my mind's eye, that somebody was renting this from Blockbuster back then, playing Vampire The Masquerade, they got CDs from like Korn and The Cure or some shit, and going to Hot Topic when it still was kind of a slightly intimidating place to shop, and man that's fucking cool. They had it so goddamn good back in the day it's like not even real! And yeah seeing the fashion trends, the hairstyles, MTV News, Tower Record stores, hearing this industrial rock soundtrack, it's such a time capsule of 2002 and it's a trip! Cast wise it's an interesting mix. Unreal to think we nearly had Stuart Townsend as Aragorn son of Arathorn before they dropped him and he hopped onto this film, and his performance is pure prideful rebellion which from what I've seen of this character I think it fits. Aaliyah who despite showing up roughly 50 minutes into a hour and forty minute movie has a hell of an introduction, she has such a grand mix of presence, danger, and seduction, it really does break my heart she never got to see the reaction and legacy of this character. She really brought her all to this! Marguerite Moreau as this secret society member who keeps getting more imbedded in the vampire world, I didn't really know what the end game was for her character and the romance was ehhhhh, still better than Edward and Bella but not by much, decent performance though. I was blown away seeing Paul McGann in this as one of the senior members of this vampire monitoring society, very small part but I so don't even care cause I love that man and it made me so happy! Production wise it's fairly solid, quite nice sets, good bit of location shooting, the effects for the vampires range from slightly absurd to subtly effective but I can roll with it either way given the time period. It's probably not objectively a very good movie but I can also see the appeal it had and this without a doubt has a cult following, so it's not a sure fire recommendation like most of the time but if you have an ounce of nostalgia for the turn of the millenia and proved to your parents it never was truly a phase I say watch it once. 2.5 stars, 6/10, and we get foreign-y again before the end!
No comments:
Post a Comment