INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE: THE VAMPIRE CHRONICLES (1994) * Rarely, if ever, has so little (right) been done with so much. Admittedly they were handicapped right off the bat by basing it on the literary work of Anne Rice, but they should have expected that when they hired her to write a screenplay based on her novel. Plus, they could have just made it up as they went along once they got on the set. No one could sound anything but idiotic reading those narratives, unless maybe it was John Belushi reading them in a Russian accent occasionally interrupted by staccato Irish ululations. Anyway Brad Pitt tries to do it with a straight face, and no one sensible will ever think the better of him for it. All-time for the chicks casting, but instead of charm and looks they get Tom Cruise and Antonio Banderas battling for the title of all-time dumbest wig. Cruise wins, without question, in his puffy blond eclaire of a bouffant. To make matters worse for any warm-blooded ladies in the audience Cruise, Pitt, and Banderas all act more than a little bit gay. To make matters still worse they act gay without charm, elegance, or credibility of any sort; 12 year old Kirsten Dunst (who also gets soaked with a ridiculous 'do) acts circles around all of them and eventually becomes so disgusted with the unspeakably ineffectual Cruise that she kills the star in a radical effort to improve the picture. Stephen Rea then starts putting vampire people out of their misery to the same purpose, but he can do little for the audience; the damage is long since done. Laure Marsac briefly electrifies the stage under highly exploitative circumstances, but at that point you're ready for anything that isn't Cruise or Pitt waxing philosophical in the passionate monotone of an A student collapsing under the moral avalanche of receiving a B in basket weaving. How do you conclude things perfectly? With Guns N' Roses, probably the best band in the world at the time, performing an incomprehensibly uncreative, inane, inappropriate and unnecessary cover of "Sympathy for the Devil." Now, if Axl had improvised lyrics and started yelling about having sympathy for Cruise-he needed the cash to improve his religious standing, and sympathy for Pitt-he was looking for a big break, and sympathy for Rice-she's obviously got problems...we could have at least been left with a knowing smile.
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