BY DANIEL BAIG | First, a woman behind me, thumbing through the production notes we had been given when we checked in at the door of the theater, said loudly to her companion, "Oh, that's right. This is Uh-lie!-uh's [that's how she said it] last movie. It's so sad."

Considering this was a press screening, I found her ignorance surprising. But that thought was put on hold as her companion responded. "And it's really ironic, because in the movie she's undead," he joked.

Sigh.

Then I found to my dismay it wasn't just critics sitting around me in the reserved section. There were  ugh  agents' assistants all over the place, loudly talking on their cell phones and to each other about "inside" stuff that anybody who reads entertainment news knows about. The guy next to me actually placed a call to somebody, asking him to call a guy who was sitting a row away, to tell him that . . . he was sitting a row away.

And then I had to pick up my legs to let two fully outfitted and coiffed goth punks go by to sit on my other side. I seriously doubted they were press or agents, and suspected they just stepped into the taped-off section because they felt like it. Now, don't start sending me angry emails. I'm not saying goth punks can't be film critics . . . Well, actually, I guess I am saying that.

None of this was boding well for the movie that was about to start. And people had been predicting it was going to stink.

But, as it turned out, Queen Of The Damned ain't half bad.

Though that's not to say it's very good, either.

It's not nearly as good as Interview With The Vampire. On the other hand, it's better than the first Blade (that movie's incredible opening aside).

Basically, while it's very disappointing if you're hoping for a classy, truly dramatic work like Interview With The Vampire, if you're just looking for a loud, quick-paced and flashy supernatural romp, and you don't go in with terribly high expectations, you'll be satisfied.

That is, unless the reason you're planning on going is because you think Aaliyah is the star. Because she's not. She's basically only in the last half (third?) of the movie, and doesn't have a great deal of dialogue  which is, sadly, actually a mercy.

Or unless the reason you're planning on going is because you're a huge fan of Anne Rice's Chronicles of the Vampires novels, the second and third of which, The Vampire Lestat and The Queen Of The Damned, this film is supposed to be based on. Because you'll probably be pissed off or disgusted.

I've noticed just in the last week or so that the ads for the movie have all of a sudden started calling it, "Anne Rice's Queen Of The Damned." Which they most definitely were not calling it up until recently. That's not how the title appears on the poster, or on the screen (at least when I saw it, which was only last week). I guess the studio is getting scared by negative buzz and decided to try and capitalize on Rice's name, which at least in the world of publishing still pretty much guarantees a hit.

But it's a fairly disingenuous move, considering how different their product is from what Rice originally wrote.

Now I completely understand filmmakers' lack of fealty to source material. Rare is the movie which is completely, or even close to completely, faithful to the book. Books and films are very different art forms, with different demands and conventions. And the movie is a completely separate entity. It should be accessible to those who didn't read the book. And there's no reason why it can't be different anyway. It being different doesn't cause the book to cease to exist.

But I have to say I am more mystified by the filmmakers' decision to not treat this movie as a sequel to the filmed Interview With The Vampire, which was a big hit which didn't come out all that long ago, and which in any case has probably been seen on video or TV by most of the people who'll go see Queen Of The Damned.

Queen completely ignores the existence of Interview, which shouldn't be a problem for those who never saw Interview, but for someone like me, who did  even though it was back when it came out, and not since then  it is a problem. Because much of the time I was confused or asking questions, instead of giving myself up to the movie.

Questions like, where in the world is Brad Pitt's character (Louis)? You'd think after Lestat woke up from his long sleep he'd want to go and check up on his old bosom companion. Or vice versa, at least; after Lestat makes himself a very famous vampire by becoming a rock star, you'd think Louis would come by to say hi, even if just for old times' sake.

And then, what about the Christian Slater character? Remember? That's how the filmed Interview ended  with Lestat jumping into the car being driven by Slater's character, the student who was "interviewing" Brad the whole movie, and biting him in the neck!

Or how about, And where's Armand?

And, most obviously  Wait a minute! Wasn't Lestat blond?!? I mean, Tom Cruise is obviously not a natural blond, but he went ahead and made himself look like Goldilocks the Cross Dressing Vampire for the part anyway.

I suppose this actually was a very deliberate choice on Queen's makers. By making their Lestat, played by the undeniably sexy Stuart Townsend (apparently, some vampires like to spend eternity shirtless), a brunet, I guess they're signaling that this is not to be taken as a sequel to Neil Jordan and Rice's Interview.

This also would explain the apparent decision to de-gay the world of the vampires. Lestat, plainly gay, or at least bisexual, in the first movie (and even more manifestly in the novels, or at least the first two, the only ones I've read), is now the straightest, swingin'-est bloodsucker around.

Another example: in Rice's original story, Lestat was created by a vampire who, frankly, had a thing for blond youths. Here, his creator Marius (not the guy in the books who made him, but that's of no account; making it be Marius works fine) is forced to give a very dubious explanation for why he makes Lestat an immortal:

He, Marius, clearly a very bright and cultured Renaissance man, or I guess I should say vampire, decided that he needs someone to explain to him the modern things that are going to be coming to pass. And so he chooses as the best guy for the job a callow, uneducated provincial kid barely into his twenties? Yeah, whatever.

Clearly Vincent Perez, the actor playing Marius, didn't buy this explanation either, and, I'm guessing not with the encouragement of director Michael Rymer (and almost certainly not with the encouragement of the studio suits), subtly goes ahead and indicates with his eyes and other tools at an actor's disposal that his interest in Lestat isn't exactly what the screenplay makes him say it is. To make it a little clearer, his entire performance is a tad fey.

This also probably explains the absence of Louis and/or Armand. Clearly Queen's makers weren't looking to recreate the bickering-lovers arguments Tom and Brad spent half their scenes together engaging in. They just wanted to make an action vampire film, albeit one with a touch more wit and class than Blade.

Which, in all fairness, they've done.

It has a few other things going for it as well. Chief among these is its quality cinematography, not surprising considering director of photography Ian Baker's previous work includes the memorably shot Six Degrees Of Separation, The Russia House, and Iceman. In Queen Of The Damned, he manages occasionally with a combination of terrific lighting and very well chosen film stock to recreate the magical deep burnished glow of Technicolor on some of the characters' clothes (credit here of course is also due costumer Angus Strathie, the co-costume designer of Moulin Rouge), most noticeably Marius' red velvet jacket, and a blue one Lestat wears.

Los Angeles' Griffith Observatory, familiar from movies like Rebel Without A Cause and The Rocketeer, is made to look menacing and downright sepulchral, though coldly beautiful. Good helicopter camera work finishes off the scene well.

Some quick establishing exterior shots of Marius' island palace off the coast of Italy gleam with the beauty of Pre-Raphaelite paintings.

However, at times the cinematography leads to problems by being "too good"  well, by being too clear and well lit. This happens on the several occasions where the makeup the actors playing the vampires are wearing, either for special effects purposes or just to give them a sort of pallid dermatological perfection, is too noticeable. For example, when Marius feeds Lestat with blood from his wrist to "make" him, there's a closeup of his wrist as he cuts it, and all I could pay attention to was the horribly thick layer of makeup on it. At other times Townsend's face is very brightly lit with white light and just looks strange, almost as if he's being shot in soft focus, though that can't be what's going on, as it's too crisp, and we can see the vast amount of makeup he has on.

The climactic transformation at the end of the movie is an absolutely stunning display of imagination and technology. It also clearly involved quite a bit of work from Aaliyah. Unfortunately, it seems pretty much the entire effects budget was blown on this one incredible shot, as most of the rest of the SFX is rather cheesy. When the vampires "fly," it's handled by blurring them from one side of the screen to another. You've seen better effects on TV.

(Speaking of flying, there's a sequence which may or may not be an homage to the Christopher Reeve/Margo Kidder "Can You Read My Mind?" sequence in the original Superman.)

The movie also occasionally displays a sense of humor. Some of it is overly broad  one joke involving one of rock star Lestat's groupies is far too easy, and while admittedly it got a huge laugh, it will be lost on audiences not familiar with Southern California communities. But thankfully sometimes the humor is subtler. After Lestat becomes a huge celebrity, Marius comes to chat, and they choose as a place to hang out scaffolding resting against the crotch area of a giant billboard of Lestat overlooking the Sunset Strip.

An area where the movie could have gone catastrophically wrong, but doesn't, is in the music Lestat creates as a rock star. Jonathan Davis and Richard Gibbs penned a number of pretty darn good Nine Inch Nails-like songs for Lestat (actually Davis) to sing. And the black and white music videos the vampire and his mortal band make for these tunes look like real MTV videos, albeit ones in a style more popular about ten years ago.

This whole aspect of the movie leads, however, to one of Queen's big problems  a lot of it just doesn't compute when you give it any thought. For example: Why does Lestat turn himself into a rock star and make music videos and sell millions of CDs?

Because he's lonely. He says this about thirty times in the movie; apparently the writers were afraid we might not get it. Lonely for companionship. Being a vampire, he says, dooms one to an eternity of solitude. So he does all the music stuff to draw vampires to him for some company. Fine and dandy.

Except the movie doesn't support any of what I just said, even though it claims it. It undermines itself at every turn. For example, the solitude stuff seems like a curiously false thing to whine about, since, for example, Lestat has no problems making human friends  the members of his band. Just because they're people doesn't mean he wants to eat them.

But, no, he means vampire companionship, you say. Okay. Well, guess what? The movie spends a lot of time showing us a very popular vampire bar! Yes, a secret bar just for vampires! And it's full of them! Drinking (seemingly both blood and booze), dancing, playing music, gossiping, smoking, flirting . . . And guess what else? Lestat finds out about it, and is shown hanging out there! But does he try to mingle? To introduce himself to some of his fellow damned souls? To pick up a comely young vampire?

No! He just sits in a dark corner, sulking. And yet he feels the need to stage a monstrous concert in, of all places, Death Valley, to draw out vampires to play with?

He doesn't need more undead acquaintances, he just needs better social skills.

And then, how does he know the concert will draw out vampires? Because vampires aren't supposed to tell mortal humans about vampires  that they exist at all, let alone talk about their pasts or likes and dislikes, etc. Lestat does these things. Why are these things bad? Because humans, knowing about vampires, will then hunt them down and destroy them.

Problem with this scenario: Lestat tells the whole world all about vampires, and of course nobody but other vampires takes him seriously! They think it's all an act! Just like Alice Cooper or Black Sabbath! There's absolutely zero danger of humans going after vampires because of anything Lestat does. There's zero danger of any humans really believing in vampires (except those unlucky few who end up as their victims) . . . uh, unless, say, a bunch of vampires did something really stupid like, oh, show up at a massively publicized and attended rock concert and FLY THROUGH THE AIR IN FRONT OF TENS OF THOUSANDS OF ONLOOKERS AND DEMONSTRATE VAMPIRE SUPER STRENGTH AND SPEED!

Yes, that's right  the way the vampires try and ensure nobody finds out about their existence is to make a very public spectacle of themselves in all their vampirehood.

BOY is this dumb! You'd think at the very least they would have, say, jumped him backstage! And why did they have to wait for the concert anyway? As one of the most famous people in the world, Lestat's whereabouts at any time are no secret! His groupies manage to find him easily enough! (As does Marius for that matter, and a human girl exhibiting stalker-like tendencies towards him.)

Dumb dumb dumb dumb . . . DUMB!

Speaking of groupies, another problem with Queen Of The Damned is that Lestat is for all intents and purposes the movie's hero. He repeatedly saves the damsel in distress, and of course ends up with same girl. I'd say they walk off into the sunset, but you know they couldn't do that since they're vampires (well, actually, he could, but that's another matter), but they do walk off arm in arm into a very happy-ending-like shot. He makes a noble self-sacrifice at one point, etc.

Yet he's not all that nice a guy, so it's kind of hard, for example, to root for the girl to end up with him. How is he not that nice a guy? Well, you'd think the least a vampire could do if he's going to dine on people (some of them, you may recall, stick to animals) is not make it unpleasant for their poor victim. You know, a quick kill. Or a slow sucking which apparently feels good for the unwitting blood donor. Lestat, on the other hand, has fun in one scene by terrorizing his victims  naove young female fans  first, and then attacking them in what looks like a very brutal, horrifying, and painful way. It's most unpleasant to watch.

Yet later on he looks down on Akasha (Aaliyah's character, the titular queen) because she seems to enjoy killing humans. Sheesh! What a hypocrite!

By the way  Lestat is French. So when he speaks in English, shouldn't he have a French accent? Why, yes he should. Does he? No. Not in this movie. Instead, Townsend speaks in something that would probably be labeled in a book/tape set for actors to learn dialects from as Non-Specified European.

Another question. **PARTIALLY DISGUISED SPOILER** Near the end of the story, one character is told that she's actually been watched over all her life by a group of vampires who made sure she was never in harm's way. Uh, if that's so, then why was she a half-second away from being killed in an alleyway until she was rescued by someone most definitely not in her group of Fairy Godmother vampires?

And how does that rescuer know her name?

Here's a question for the director and the editor: **PARTIALLY DISGUISED SPOILER** One character in the film's climactic scene is temporarily immobilized while a character extremely dear to her is targeted for death; shortly after that, a number of her friends heroically meet their dooms. Why not once do you give us a reaction shot of her face?? It's a downright bizarre omission.

Oh, and why are that character's vampire pals so funny looking? One of them looks and walks a lot more like a zombie, or a cast member of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, than a vampire.

More questions: Why/how does Akasha, a 5,000 year old Egyptian queen who's been awake now in this century for, oh, a day or so, speak English?

And even more interestingly, why does she speak English like Eartha Kitt?

Is the reason she walks and moves her arms like that because she's imitating those two-dimensional Egyptian wall paintings she probably saw a lot of in her previous life? Or is she just a big Bangles fan?

Why does she take an erotic, rose-petal filled bath with her lover (who does have his clothes off) FULLY CLOTHED?? What, is she shy?

Hard to believe after her performance the prior night, which leads to the next question:

Why in the world does she **MINOR DETAIL SPOILER** make her surprise grand entrance at Lestat's concert by coming up THROUGH THE FLOOR, bathed in red light, no less?? It's like she's playing the Devil-as-showgirl in a Vegas revue!

Flying in would have been far classier, and just as impressive.

Why doesn't she pick up some new clothes? Hanging out in London at night in nothing but a gold form- fitting breastplate must be chilly, surely? (Please don't write in to explain to me that as a vampire she doesn't have to worry about such things. I know. It was just a joke.)

So I've kind of been dancing around the actual question of whether Aaliyah's performance is good or bad, other than mentioning her accent, which is so goofy that every time she spoke at least someone in the audience couldn't help but laugh. It's not that I think one shouldn't speak ill of the dead I've never understood that concept; after all, the dead can't hear you  but it does seem kind of mean, all the same, and definitely sad, to pick on someone who died so tragically young.

The thing is, though, that actually I'm not really speaking ill of her, anyway. She obviously gamely did everything she was asked to do, the way she was asked to do it. It's not by any means a lazy performance.

Rather, I speak ill of whoever made the original decision to cast her. Because, of all Queen Of The Damned's flaws, this is the fatal one. It was a colossally wrong-headed move.

Because, while Aaliyah is (was) truly lovely, gorgeous really, she's about as scary as Kermit the Frog. For one thing, she seems rather petite when seen with other characters. She's delicate, a skinny, pretty little thing. And no matter how hard she tries, she's just not imposing or awe-inspiring at all.

On the contrary, when she does try hard, it just comes across as silly. At one point, after one of her lines, it wasn't just one or two tactless audience members who were laughing, it was the entire theater simultaneously guffawing at something that was never meant to be guffawed at. The line in question is, "Enough of this discussion!" But the comical accent, and her little dramatic swish of her hands, palms down, to either side, was far more endearing than alarming.

This is the kind of miscasting one is forced to accept in school plays, like when the eleven year old boy is cast as the romantic lead opposite his female classmate who towers over him. But it comes across in this movie as nothing but a calculated commercial move, a gimmick really. Aaliyah was good in Romeo Must Die, but it should have been immediately apparent to the filmmakers that she wasn't what this role called for.

I keep thinking that, as far as known actresses/celebrities go (and really, casting an absolute unknown would have been a far, far better choice), there was a pretty obvious terrific candidate for Akasha  Grace Jones. She, I think, would have been able to get across the menace and grandeur that the part calls for. And the fact that she's quite a bit older than Aaliyah just makes sense, if anything. Akasha was supposed to be a queen for a long time. Why would she look 22?

Oh well. There's no denying that Aaliyah looks great here, covered in gold body makeup, wearing elaborate headdresses, baring her long white fangs.

Before I conclude, I should mention that Queen Of The Damned offers up two notable firsts:

I'm pretty sure it's the first movie in which a vampire says, "Bring it on!"

And then there's this great credit in the cast list at the end of the movie: "Eurotrash Vampires."

Gotta love it.

Grade: B-/B