Even though this movie was released in 1994 I cannot help but embarrassingly admit I just saw it in recent months. After hearing people talk and talk about how awesome this movie was, I decided it had to be added to my long list of movies that need to be seen.
It has star power. Interview with a Vampire features Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Christian Slater (if you can call him a star, well he kind of was then), Thadie Newton, and a 12 year-old Kirsten Dunst. Kirsten found a movie where her real vampire teeth fit the role perfectly. That is probably the reason she was cast. The great acting in this film from the whole cast was the only real positive that stood out to me.
After a viewing, I really do not know why fans of this movie love it so much. I won't say I hated it, but this movie has one of the most abrupt and unsatisfying endings I have ever witnessed.
(THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS)
This movie generally sucks. Blood for the most part, and also as a broad description of the film. I was intrigued by the first two acts as the story was set up and began to unfold. Then, it just kept going on with seemingly no direction. More unique settings and locations, more introduced characters, and more human victims of vampire mutilation. There was no clear direction for the narrative except for more of the same. Nearing the end I was getting antsy for some closure to this 123 minute plot.
Is there an overriding theme of this narrative? It seems the answer is no. When the film's conclusion unraveled, it ruined the whole movie for me. Hardly any closure to the long drawn out plot and almost no connection to what the screenplay was building at the duration of the movie.
The end brings a reintroduction of an apparently dead but un-kill-able Tom Cruise, the disappearance of Brad Pitt's character without any regard to what is next, and Christian Slater racing off like a Nascar junkie. I want some closure, especially with the character I have identified with the whole time (Pitt's character). But in the end, he just disappears leaving the audience wondering why we are watching Slater and Cruise and not Pitt for the film's final scene.
Once the credits rolled I hardly felt any connection to the characters and wondered what the producers were trying to accomplish with this movie, or more specifically this ending. It felt like a waste of time more than any satisfaction for finally seeing this movie everyone was shocked to hear I had never seen. I am here to say it is overrated.
The decently written story had potential until the poorly composed ending. Anti-climatic-epic-fail. I will tell anyone who will listen til the day I die to not waste their time with Interview with a Vampire. I can understand people enjoying this movie, but claiming it to be a great movie is way overboard.
Just to close, looking at Tom Cruise smile with vampire fangs stirs ambition to arrange a meeting between his Scientology-Katie Holmes loving face and my clenched vampire beating fist. Next in line for a vampire beating, Edward Cullen.
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