Aaliyah's performance in her last film is like that of Brandon Lee's was in "The Crow", she was going to be a star.

She doesn't even make an appearance in "Queen of the Damned" until 50 minutes into it but when she does appear it is with all her glory. She had a tremendous amount of screen presence and it is all of our loss that she perished in the plane crash last year.

"Queen of the Damned" is the story of the Vampire Lestat, played with vigor and life by Stuart Townsend. Townsend takes the role that was first brought to the big screen by Tom Cruise in "Interview with a Vampire". The story picks up with Lestat having chose to sleep away his immortality until something makes him rise from his coffin. It is the sound of rock and roll that awakens this sleeping egomaniac.

Lestat decides that he wants to rule the world of rock and roll and become the biggest star. That is when he does the one thing that all other vampires will hate him for. He breaks the code that all vampires share, that of keeping the fact that they walk with the mortals to themselves.

We then get another side of the story which has a young woman named Jessie, who has dreams of when she was a little girl and taken away from her family and sent to an orphanage. We also learn that Jessie is the youngest of a group of people who study but do not disturb vampires. She of course is enthralled with Lestat and goes on her way to try to meet him.

Aaliyah plays the Queen of the damned, Akasha, and her main goal is to kill everyone and rule the world of the living and dead.

The film has a good feel to it with it's hard rock theme and stylized filming but it left me kind of unfulfilled. I felt that it had a story to tell but director Michael Rymer didn't get it all onto the screen. The film also feels like it runs long with a lot of slow moving shots, where you want to yell "we get it already, move along".

Aaliyah and Townsend give solid performances and both prove to be just beginning their stardom, unfortunately we do not have the pleasure of seeing Aaliyah grow and mature. I also must say that I never thought I would see Lena Olin as a vampire digging her teeth into someone's neck.

For those of you who are fans of vampire films, this will work for you. For those who want a little more meat to dig your teeth into go see something else.