Bad-tasting Rice

Review: 'Damned' if you go see 'Queen'

(CNN) -- "Queen of the Damned" is just one cheesy special effect after another. This script by Scott Abbott and Michael Petroni -- adapted from a volume of Anne Rice's "Vampire Chronicles" -- doesn't contain a drop of character development. Not that the acting helps.

This time out, the legendary vampire Lestat, played by Irish actor Stuart Townsend, reinvents himself as a rock star. Think David Bowie channeling Marilyn Manson. Meanwhile, the late singer Aaliyah, in her second and last film role, plays the ancient vampire Queen Akasha as if she's a tired robot.

But the biggest waste in the film is the remarkably talented Lena Olin as a vampire named Maharet -- somehow a mother figure to a mortal named Jesse (Marguerite Moreau), who belongs to Talamascan, a group which studies paranormal activity. Jesse finds herself lusting after Lestat, who ...

Oh, never mind. None of it makes the least bit of sense, and it's all utterly ridiculous.

Rock 'n' roll vampire

Not that vampire movies should necessarily make a whole lot of sense, but there should be some kind of a story line that you can sink your teeth into -- so to speak. This film, however, simply careens from one idiotic scene to the next, leaving one bloodless body after another in its meaningless wake.

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The paper-thin premise has the androgynous vampire Lestat sleeping for a hundred years when suddenly he begins to hear rock music. Drawn to the sounds of heavy metal, he finds kindred souls in the pierced, tattooed and drugged-out musicians who pound their jagged sound through speakers big enough to swallow Cleveland.

Now, in case you didn't know, vampires are extremely secretive and guard their very existence from the human race. But not Lestat, not this time. He becomes instantly famous when he breaks the code of silence and comes "out of the closet" as a rock 'n' roll vampire. Lestat then stages a huge concert in Death Valley, and challenges all the vampires in the world to come and get him.

Along the way he awakens the aforementioned queen of all vampires, who wants to make hell on Earth by ruling the world.

If you go to this movie, you may find your own personal hell on Earth, and all the popcorn in the world might not make it worth your while.

Over and over again

Director Michael Rymer has obviously seen every "Mummy" movie ever made and uses every standard-issue effect featured in those creature features. From turning people into crumbling stone to making them burst into flames, right on down to good, old-fashioned bloodsucking -- it's all here, over and over again.

Both Townsend and Aaliyah are easy on the eye. Aaliyah may have had a film career had she not lost her life in a plane crash at age 22. Townsend undoubtedly will go on to bigger and better things than this. Of course that wouldn't be hard, since a job at a burger joint would be a step up.

Aaliyah has gotten all the press, but the real leading lady in this film is Moreau, playing the mortal who's a vampire groupie. She's perhaps best known for appearing in all three of the "Mighty Ducks" movies, and that will continue to be her claim to fame. Here, she has the awful job of dragging whatever plot there is forward, and it isn't pretty.

It would be tempting to call "Queen of the Damned" a B movie, but that would be an insult to B movies everywhere. In the 1960s, this flick would have gone straight to the drive-in movie circuit, but since few of those are still in existence today, this baby is headed directly for the discount bin at your local video store.

"Queen of the Damned" opens nationwide on Friday, and is rated R.