Reviews

It was 1984. I was a young lad of 8. Transformers had long been my favorite afternoon cartoon, then I went and seen the movie. Itwas friggan great. It was actually the first movie I can recall that I got to experience an on screen death of a character that I cared about. I remember almost shedding a tear at the death scene of Optimist prime, then the nail in the coffin. I heard one of the characters (brain fart, cant remember name.) say "Dammit". A tame word by todays standard, but enough back then to get a PG rating, and for a character in a cartoon that I had only known as squeaky clean to swear, made them seem more human to me than ever. great movie, the animation is dated, and the plot is alittle shaky by todays standard, but for its time, it was the most amazing thing American kids had ever seen.

I have seen this movie at least 275 times. The first 200 times I was stone sober. I loved the music, and the movie was an outstanding 2 hour long music video. Then I seen it under the influence of a particular mind altering drug (not pot, way better than that ;) ) I noticed things about the movie that is impossible to see with sober eyes. The most notable of which is the end, when they show the still picture of the "wall" for about 20 seconds. Sober, it appears what it is, a common concrete wall. When high if you stare at the wall, you can make out the football field he played on as a kid, you see the animated woman with saggy breasts, you more or less see, a small portion of every scene in the movie, hidden somewhere in the brickwork and shadows. I swear before god, you can try and see it sober, and the closest you will get is if you stand back you can make out a slight shadow line about 3/4 of the way down the wall, that is the football field. to see anything more you'll definitely need drugs. not pot, pot doesn't make you hallucinate and it certainly doesn't open your pupils or your mind. try something different however and you'll see Pink Floyd "The Wall" for the first time all over again.

OK..I am a Rice fan, and a huge fan of the novels. I have nearly all of them memorized. And you are also correct in saying Kirsten Dunst WAS Claudia..she crushed this role. The rest of the cast acted well, they just lacked any physical resemblance to the characters in the books, I can forgive that.

I do however have to take you to task for saying this movie lacked depth, and as such was just the story of a vampires life. Did you not pick up on the irony Louis endures? When faced with death, he's offered immortality, he accepts like 99% of people would, only to find his new immortal life is even more miserable than the one he was about to leave. He must kill to live yet with every killing he wants to die himself, only that is damn near impossible now. Granted the film didn't outwardly show this as a conflict, if you had read the book you'd know that was vitally important to the story of that book as well as subsequent books.

Also, the creation of Claudia is a sub-plot, that has more bearing on the entire Vampire Chronicle series than anything else in that story. Claudia and the defiant creation of Claudia bears importance all the way to the newest book of the series. Again you would have had to read the books for that to mean anything more than what the film portrays...

Had you read the book you would have also known exactly why Armand and his band lived as they did, where they did, and who was really behind their "revenge" and eventual death sentence to Claudia..all of this adds up to a film that was deep without appearing deep, because the depth comes later. Anne Rice wrote the books much like Quinton Tarrantino directs movies, not in chronological order..Interveiw, takes place in the 80's and tells a story 200 years in the making...Yet in later books she goes back over 6000 years and gives the complete synopsis of dozens of characters, leading up to Louis and his "interveiw" they also tie all that together allowing you to "know" why louis is the way he is, and why Claudia was significant..

By the way, I found interest in the series after seeing the movie first, and even having never read any of the books previous to the movie, I could tell there were reasons behind everything. That was what drew me to the books was because I wanted to know the "why" of it. In hindsight, I think the screenplay was written like that on purpose. Anne Rice helped write it after all.

You aren't a Rice fan or a fan of the chronicle series, so forgive me for my bluntness when I say you aren't the one who should review this movie. Instead of looking for a "self contained summary on the meaning of life"..look at this movie as chapter one of nine.

This movie was light years ahead of the next movie Queen of the damned, which IS the Hollywood glitz-fest written by idiots for idiots...