Bovie Movie

John Travolta hoped to star in it to shatter his Grease image, and Elton John was even asked to turn it into a Broadway musical, but when this highly anticipated movie version of Anne Rice’s cult novel finally came to the screen it was a decidedly anaemic affair. All sumptuously dressed up with nowhere really interesting to go, director Neil Jordan’s lavish adaptation is a stylised horror tale that lacks the emotional depth and jet-black darkness of the doom-laden tome. Too many other similar ideas have since come down the undead path, seriously undermining this stark vision of the hellish torture of being cursed to live for ever. Still, Tom Cruise is fine as the vampire Lestat, whose close relationship with handsome Brad Pitt forms an erotic twist on the Dracula legend. Kirsten Dunst impresses as the child adopted by the pair, but it’s Antonio Banderas who gives the most full-blooded performance as the bisexual Armand. This is a beautifully mounted production that’s low on divine decadence and Rice’s celebrated charnel house morbidity, but high on glossy Grand Guignol and evocative elegance. 

History’s legendary lover finally meets his romantic match in this attractive period comedy from Chocolat director Lasse Hallström. Set in 18th-century Venice, it gives a contemporary sheen to the myth of serial bed-hopper Giacomo Casanova, who as portrayed by Heath Ledger uses sex as a diversion while hunting the woman of his dreams. Predictably, she turns out to be the only female ever to refuse his advances — an idealistic, proto-feminist (Sienna Miller) who writes “heretical” tracts under a male pseudonym. What follows is a patchy mix of slapstick, swashbuckling and Carry On-style antics, as Casanova tries to escape the forces of the Inquisition long enough to demonstrate his more sensitive side. Though Miller shines as the object of Casanova’s desire, Ledger mistakenly underplays, never quite capturing his character’s raffish charm. It’s a wasted opportunity to allow him to be eclipsed by the supporting cast, whose shameful overacting transforms an initially cheeky romp into a clunky farce.