Doesn't Suck, But Has No Bite to It

Rating: 7/10 (10 March 2002)

Anne Rice is one of the few niche mainstream authors. Her novels, be they on witches, mummies, or vampires, are captivating to the many who read them. To those like myself who for whatever reason don't read them, they are appreciated for their usually good writing, but are just not interesting. "Interview with a Vampire" shows that movies based on her books (she wrote the screenplay, so there's no question of it being true to the book) suffer for the same reason.
Before anything else, its important to note that the leads, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, give excellent performances, Pitt as the tortured vampire Louis who would rather drink the blood of rats than mortals, and Cruise as his loving-to-the-point-of-insanity companion Lestat, who cares about nothing, it seems, except Louis. Though I never had any doubt about Pitt's acting abilities, this was the first "good" Cruise movie I've ever seen, though he's still a bit out there, even for his character (I didn't even recognize him the first time I saw the film). The best performance comes from neither of those two though, but a young Kirsten Dunst as the young vampire Claudia, devious, spoiled, and angry, but at the same time lonely and confused. Her precocious acting ability is amazing, and its a shame she has been in only a couple movies since where she gets an opportunity to challenge herself and give such a good performance again. The characters are definitely not the problem with the story, as they are interesting characters to observe, particularly Lestat's almost homo-erotic dialogue in regards to his feelings for Louis and Claudia's questions and childish angry response to seeing a nude young woman and the developed body she will never have.
Unfortunately, the plot is simply not as compelling as its characters. It spans multiple eras, and accurately depicts those eras, however characters change and it never adequately explains when or why. For example, about 30 years after the creation of Claudia, Louis scoffs and jokes about how he used to drink the blood of rats instead of people. It never explains when or if there was a specific incident relating to Louis' sudden change in attitude, though all of the movie up to that point explicitly detailed how he didn't want to take human life. Whether these plot holes are a fault of the original book or just the movie I don't know, but they were distracting enough to prevent me from really getting into the plot. Calling it a plot might even be a bit of a stretch; similar to last year's blockbuster "Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring" (which I also disliked for this reason), it seems more like hours of character development than an actual coherent storyline.
This is really a shame because, in all other aspects, the movie is REALLY well-done. The atmosphere is terrific, and as mentioned earlier, the differences in eras are accurately depicted. Gothic undertones prevail every setting, as locations are dark, but mysterious instead of horrifying. The score fits this mood perfectly, and there is some excellent cinematography and direction, such as the best scene in the movie, a performance of a group of "stage-vampires" (who of course are real vampires) that kidnap, strip, and drink the blood of a young woman as part of their totally unrealistic (does anyone really believe such an act, which would be controversial and probably banned today, could have taken place in 19th century Paris?) but eerily beautiful choreographed theatre act.
"Interview with a Vampire" is not a bad movie, its just not very compelling. While its a beautiful thing to watch once, there's nothing that really grabs a viewer (aside from the vampire theatre performance and Kirsten Dunst) enough to make it a truly great and enduring film.