The last surviving vampire, Maximillian, sails into New York to find a half breed female to breed with. The woman in question, Rita, doesn't know that she's a vampire. With help from his unwilling ghoul Julius, Maximillian tires to woo Rita to join him, but it is Rita's choice as to where she will spend her eternity.
This ranks as one of a series of lows in Eddie Murphy's career, although it isn't terrible just pretty poor and muddled. The plot is OK on paper but in reality it lacks focus and isn't very involving. The comedy doesn't really work and most of it isn't funny, even the characters written to be funny can barely manage to get a laugh. Also it fails to be scary. With Wes Craven and a big budget, you'd expect some scares even if they were average ones, but no, not a thing the `scary' scenes are just silly action scenes and there is no real horror (or tension) in this film.
I like Eddie Murphy and I like his trend of playing multiple characters. The problem is that this only works where the material is good or the film is funny (ie his `family' was the best thing about the Nutty Professor), however here his characters are not good and his main role is ineffective and silly. I always have time for Angela Bassett as she is not only beautiful but plays good characters (anyone who saw her carry Strange Days will know what I mean), but here she has little material but still manages to grab the attention. She acts Murphy off the screen. Hardison is not a good actor and his comedy role is not good at all, even reliable like Witherspoon and a few other familiar faces are wasted.
Overall this just about passes the time but it manages to fail in almost every area it tries to work in. Not funny and not scary and not dramatic and not romantic watchable but really has very little going for it.
3 out of 8 found this helpful