There's a phrase for movies that have a built-in audience, films that are going to be wildly popular and send ticket sales soaring through the box office roof regardless of cinematic merits. Such movies are referred to as "critic-proof."
In other words, it doesn't matter one whit what reviews say about such movies, they are going to be hits anyway. And such is the case with "Interview With the Vampire," thanks to the enormous popularity of Anne Rice's best-selling novel and its subsequent sequels.
And the film is, in general, rather faithful to the book . . . although, to no one's surprise, the character of Lestat has been toyed with.
Anne Rice wrote the screenplay and Neil Jordan, who shot to fame with "The Crying Game," directed. And let's just say that "subtle" is not in their vocabulary.
The premise is intriguing, of course. A modern-day vampire named Louis (Brad Pitt) is in San Francisco when he encounters a free-lance journalist named Malloy (Christian Slater), and instead of sucking his blood, decides to give him a story. And the first portion of the film fulfills its promise, as Louis relates his second life, after he became a vampire.
"I am flesh and blood - but not human," Louis explains. "I haven't been human for 200 years."
The film then flashes back to 1791 New Orleans, where Louis is the master of a large plantation and is mourning the death of his wife and child. He's suicidal when Lestat stumbles upon him, and he's given a choice - death or eternal life. Eternal life with a price, of course.
In a stupor, Louis chooses the night life and "lives" to regret it. As the film progresses, we learn that he is too sensitive and thoughtful to be a predator. He regrets taking human lives, yet is drawn to the nourishing blood that sustains him.
Lestat, meanwhile, is more of an animal. A dark, cynical figure with a biting sense of humor, and he and Louis clash as often as they work in tandem to stay one step ahead of the "stupid mortals" on whom they feed.
Eventually, Louis takes a bite out of 12-year-old Claudia (Kirsten Dunst), whose mother has died of the plague. But Lestat turns her into a vampire, as a companion for Louis, little realizing the frustration the child will feel being unable to grow into adulthood.
A conflict ensues, which eventually leads to Lestat's seeming downfall and sends Louis and Claudia on a search around the world for their vampire roots.
When this shift in plotting occurs, and Lestat is absent for most of the rest of the film, there's an incredible energy loss. While Louis is always the film's focal point, he's a fairly bland character, played quietly and introspectively by Pitt. But when Lestat is on the screen, Cruise gives the role everything he's got, with wild passion and cruel humor. As a result, when he's gone, the movie begins to seriously sag.
Much of the final third involves Louis and Claudia's encounter with a band of vampires in Paris, led by the enigmatic Armand (Antonio Banderas) and the clownish Santiago (Stephen Rea). Yet, despite Santiago's comic antics, they fail to bring the proceedings back to life until a violent climactic moment. (Rea also affects the worst accent - is it French or Spanish? - since Rod Steiger's Hispanic mobster in "The Specialist." And there are places where the dialogue in this sequence is unintelligible.)
In essence, the first half of "Interview," which is essentially a wild, very dark comedy, is much better than the second half, which slips into melodramatic musings, unanswered questions and ups the gore ante.
And whatever one's preconceived notions might have been about Cruise as Lestat, he is very powerful in the role and literally takes charge every time he's on the screen. Dunst is also excellent, wonderfully conveying the pain of her gradual realization that life as a child is worse than life as a vampire.
The movie, like the book, reinvents vampire lore - forget your notions about mirrors, garlic and stakes through the heart. And though the violence is not quite up there with the goriest horror movies, for a big-budget, mainstream effort (and with Tom Cruise's name above the title), this one may reach an audience not used to such levels of mayhem.
"Interview With the Vampire" is rated R for considerable blood, violence and gore and a couple of gratuitous scenes of female nudity.