Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.

I can't even work up the energy about this one to be negative or positive. I didn't like the script very much, but I'm sure there's an audience for it.

Let's see if IamLegolas is among that audience:

I saw QOTD at a screening tonight at the WB studio in Burbank, CA Thursday night and for anyone that was riding the fence on whether to see it or not I've decided to write this review. Anne Rice diehards should stay far, far away. People who hate metal/rock music, even though very gothic tinged/inspired should stay far, far away.

Anyone left? Ok. It's not as bad as you think, but it's still not that great either. It's no The Hunger or Interview With The Vampire or Near Dark, but it's not a Dracula 2000 or John Carpenter's Vampires. I do think they've done the best they could of done with cramming 2 novels into an almost 2 hour film. Come to think of it, I don't even think anything from The Vampire Lestat even made it to the screen, all the flashbacks that were supposed to be from that book were made up. SPOILER WARNING...

***SPOILER*** Marius is Lestat's maker??? Nicholas has been totally excised from the movie and was replaced with a female violin player who became an early victim of Lestat, making him feel guilty for taking her life so he keeps her violin.***END SPOILER***

There are a lot more changes; it's surreal to see Rice's characters play out scenes that weren't written in the novel. Some characters' behavior/appearances were changed from how they were written originally. All the actors did OK jobs, Stuart Townshend was pretty neat as Lestat, very impish if not melodramatic at times, but I still like Tom Cruise's Lestat. Aaliyah doesn't get as much screen time as you think, but with the help of costuming, special effects and sound, her initial scenes really make her Akasha, Queen Of The Damned. You actually feel her power resonate off of the screen. I think the best performance was by Marguerite Moreau who played Jesse, her performance was pretty rock solid. Vincent Perez did an okay job, but he wasn't at all how I envisioned Marius, but he looked like he had fun with his role. What's a real travesty is that important book characters like Pandora and Armand aren't mentioned at all onscreen. Their characters were there but were portrayed as very minor characters with no introduction whatsoever. It was like, here is Maharet and her cronies. I had to double check the credits and was shocked to see that indeed there was an actor that played Armand and an actress that portrayed Pandora, but you could have fooled me!

I think the musical score was my favorite part of the movie, including the songs used as Lestat's music. The combo of Korn's Jonathan Davis and Oingo Boingo's keyboardist Richard Gibbs kicked ass. I did however dislike the use of 'normal' songs like using an old Deftone's song over a Akasha/Lestat 'lovemaking' scene. I also don't like it how Lestat's music seemed to be blaring everywhere, I think it was overused and should of just been keep to scenes where his video was being shown or at the concert. I don't know, maybe it was a good idea to have everything seem like a giant rock video since most of the film was about Lestat the rock star. Anyway, to sum up, basically don't go in expecting the book except for the overall plot outline. It's a decent vampire film, but since it's based on a series of books that redefined the vampire mythology (for better or for worse) it should have been treated with more respect.... and of course as 2 movies.

Well, that certainly wasn't a dismissal of the film. I know several people who went tonight, but haven't had a chance to talk to them yet. Maybe this'll be a nice holdover for vampire fans until March 22.

But it's gauche to mention the competition, isn't it?

Isn't it?

"Moriarty" out.