Interview with the Vampire Submitted Saturday, July 10, 2004 - 2:50:01 PM by Klaitu
Ack, a vampire movie! Oh, but hey, wait.. Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Christian Slater, and Kirsten Dunst? Okay, maybe I'll forgo the "all vampire movies suck" creed and take a gander.
Alright, if there is one thing that all vampires in all incarnations do, it's what? All together now: SUCK BLOOD. All vampires suck blood, that's the entire point to vampires. Keep this in mind, because we'll be coming back to this later.
Brad Pitt is a vampire.. and he became a vampire in the 1790's. Tom Cruise turned him into a vampire, but was frustrated with Pitt because he clung to human morality, so Cruise turns this little girl into a vampire, and because vampires are undead, she has to stay young like that forever.
Pitt and company spend their days eating people and basically doing nothing else. After awhile, they get pissed off at Tom Cruise and kill him.. twice. Then they decide to go to France in search of other vampires. The other vampires turn out to be not very friendly.. they kill the little girl, and so Pitt gets revenge on them by setting them on fire and chopping them in half.
Then he goes back to the United States and finds out that he didn't actually kill Tom Cruise (either the first or second time) and decides to move to San Francisco with all the other freaks.
He's about to eat Christian Slater when Pitt decides to tell him his life story, which Slater records onto audio tape. Slater gets scared and runs away, but Tom Cruise jumps in Pitts car and sucks his blood. The end.
The vast majority of this movie is spent obsessing over what we already know vampires do.. SUCK BLOOD. Here's a scene from the movie:Brad Pitt: I wont take her life! It's wrong! Tom Cruise: You loser, you're a vampire, kill em and suck all their blood! Brad Pitt: No, I am clinging to human morality! Tom Cruise: ARRRGH! You Suck! Now, you get the point after the first time this scene plays out. The second time this exact same scene happens, you really get the point. The third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth time this happens is just redundant and boring.
WE GET THE POINT ALREADY! He dosen't want to kill people!
Not that I blame the filmmakers.. apparently all vampires do is sleep in coffins and eat people. All in all they are very boring, I suppose. It's a shame that vampires don't have more depth than that.
The only aspect to the story that is interesting in any respect is Kirsten Dunst. Her mind grows up, but her body never does. She looks on women with envy because they are what she can never be. Not that any of this matters, because she dies.
Perhaps the most disappointing is that the story has no completion. No story points are resolved. The final scene is Tom Cruise biting Christian Slater. You don't know what happened to Brad Pitt, nor do you know what happens to Christian Slater.
There are also several consistancy mistakes throughout the movie. For instance.. what happens when vampires are exposed to sunlight? They DIE! More accurately.. they turn into ash.. and apparently so do their clothes and jewelry.
What else can vampires do? They can fly, right? So if you trapped vampires in a big hole that the sun would eventually shine into, you'd expect they could fly out, right? Well, they don't.
The second time they kill Tom Cruise, they burn him alive. This dosen't kill him, it just really makes him mad. Later in the movie, Brad Pitt burns like 20 vampires alive.. which presumably will not kill them, but make them really mad as well.. so if the intent was to kill them, he did not succeed.
Aside from all this, there is a more disturbing and disgusting nature to the movie. The sheer number of bloodsucking scenes and the way that they are filmed indicates some form of sexual connotation. On many occasions, Tom Cruise will bite a chick, who then is suddenly overcome with pleasure. This gives the vampires this creepy sexual predator theme. It's like every time they bite someone it's the vampire equivalent to raping them.
In other words, its not my bag.. at all.
There are some very good points about this movie, however.
First off, from the allstar cast you know the acting is excellent and totally believable. Kirsten Dunst in particular does an amazing job.
Secondly, the costumes, wardrobe, and sets are appropriate to their eras and look amazing. They really lend themselves to the age of the setting.
Thirdly, there are no naked rave orgys.. like in all other vampire movies. Usually vampires have orgys, dance to trace music, smoke, do drugs, and suck blood. In this movie they just suck blood and sleep.
Overall Score: 2 out of 10
The only reason it didn't get a 1 was due to the acting, costumes, and no orgy scenes.
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