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Reviewing The Classics: Vampire in Brooklyn


Twilight kind of ruined vampires for me if I'm being honest. They ruined werewolves too, just not to the same extent. Vampires were always romanticized as these elegant creatures but there were always authors and directors willing to portray them as much more vicious creatures. After Twilight, that wasn't the case anymore. Every vampire needed to be the definition of romantic. I stopped reading books and watching films about vampires after that. The classics, however remain classics. Yes, I'm considering Vampire in Brooklyn a classic. Yes, I know it's an Eddie Murphy move, I don't care.

Vampire in Brooklyn follows the ancient Caribbean Vampire Maxamillion as he travels to Brooklyn hoping to awaken the vampire side of the lone survivor of his race. While the cause seems noble, Max isn't cool. I mean, he's really cool but he's pretty evil too. First thing he does is track down Julius who saw him crash a ship into the docks. He kills the mobsters after Julius by ripping out a heart and then just dismembering one. He turns Julius into a ghoul who occasionally loses body parts because he's decaying. Has Max never heard of a thrall? Way easier to manage.

The vampire he's looking for turns out to be an NYPD officer named Rita played by the Angela Bassett who may be a vampire in real life since she doesn't age. Rita's partner Justice is madly in love with her and tries to keep her from Max, just because he's jealous. At one point Max sleeps with Rita's roommate and plants a letter making it seem like she had run off, he really killed her, and framed Justice for the wild sex. Personally, I think he should have gone for the murder framing too.

After doing everything in his power to get the two together, including shape shifting into a preacher and leading the least prepared sermon in history. Eventually he convinces Rita to become a vampire while Justice puts together the pieces. In the final show down Rita stabs Max with an ancient blade deciding she'd rather be human with Justice than a vampire with Max.

It's a straight forward movie plot. The thing that makes this great is the comedy. It's funny all the way through. While there are plenty of serious moments, the comedy just flows. The sermon where Max possess Pastor Pauly is just non stop laughter. He points out a deacon having a good time with a $2 hooker when he told his wife he was visiting his mother. He makes up a lie about Justice and Rita's roommate. There's a scene where Julius is trying to escape Max and has Justice helping to find his eye that had fallen out. Justice accidentally steps on it and there's this awkward moment of what happens next and nothing happens. It's funny because that little moment was a break in the final showdown between Rita, Max and Justice.

When the film came out, everyone hated. In fact a lot of people still hated it. Reviews listed it as unfunny and not scary at all. Some listed it as the worst movie from Eddie Murphy, Wes Craven and Angela Bassett. The problem is, I think a lot of the jokes just went over some of the critics heads, because they weren't for them. Pastor Pauly is funny because he's just a greedy pastor preying on the poor telling them to give money to the church and it'll make their lives better. Meanwhile he's got on this super fancy suit a huge church in the middle of the projects as well as a van with a bed and his face on the side. Pauly is just stealing money and it's funny because every ghetto in America has a preacher like that.

The acting is nowhere near as bad as some critics claimed either. Murphy and Bassett had legit chemistry on scene showing that Bassett can do comedy just fine despite rarely appearing in comedic films. Murphy also displayed his ability to portray serious roles, something he wouldn't be acknowledged for until Dream Girls. Kadeem Hardison and John Witherspoon are a hilarious duo and it seems like a lot of their lines were just improvised comedy. There's one scene where Witherspoon's character, Silas who is Julius' uncle is just making fun of him. He's talking about all the body parts he's lost and it's clear he's just making stuff up at the time and the camera has to cut away before Kadeem starts laughing.

Critics hate this film, it isn't a secret. Yet, it's still gone on to become a classic and a must watches for thousands if not millions of people. I'm not a fan of Shakespeare, but he knew his audience well, and he played to that. This is a similar case, the cast is almost all black and most of which group up impoverished. The jokes in the movie are for that demographic so it's not a surprise that so many critics just didn't get it, yet the film still gets plenty of air time during the Halloween season for being timelessly funny. It's considered the worst film for a lot of the cast and crew, for a worst film, it's pretty good.

You should buy Darrell's Book, watch him on the Blerds Online YouTube Channel or The CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. 
Darrell S.

Hey, I write stuff, a lot of different stuff, that's all.

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