Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009)

I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

Absolutely Brilliant!

The first must-see film of the year.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Apparently this is based on a book. I don't care. This movie is so, so bad. The effects are bad. The acting is bad. The script is terrible. There is only one joke that works (the friend of the main character gets pissed when he sees that the main character is presenting to be dead so that noone knows he's a vampire. Thats the only scene in this movie that I found to be genuinely entertaining). This movie is boring and tedious and I would not recommend it. Its not even worth waling about.

What a downer. Just when it began to look like a nice little film, they introduce this wooden statue with 1 and 1/2 expressions named Massoglia. He's obviously been chosen for either his looks (rather average actually) or his parents had something to do with the film industry or backing the film or maybe they're just Mafiosa who run Vegas and Hollywood. Anyway, this kid doesn't even try. He looks like he's on drugs to squelch pain. Even trees have more moods. This boy ought to be driving a pickup truck for the local Esso station. He probably wouldn't even be good at that. It's difficult to keep watching this film (though I did just to see what happens in the end) because everyone else is fine and trying so hard to carry it. One feel pity for the costars. All that meat and no potatoes.

Before you keep reading, I will say that I read the books and so my own opinion will be heavily influenced by the books. When I read the entire Cirque Du Freak series, I was amazed by it and I got hooked on it. There was always an astounding plot twist waiting in each book, which made it amazing. I can't say I feel the same way about the movie. This movie is basically the main idea of book 1 with a whole bunch of random stuff thrown in. Many movies mostly follow the main idea of a book but change a few scenes here and there and throw in a few changed details. This basically rewrote everything. Things like the extent of Darren's abilities are over-exaggerated and other things like the vampaneze are nothing like their book counterparts. I could go on for a long time about the many differences between the books and the movie but I won't. One thing that really bothered me was Darren's expressionless-ness. It seemed like he wore the same face throughout the movie. On a more positive note, the action scenes were pretty good although at some points they felt a bit fake. The special effects were also pretty good.

Although I worked in a bookstore a while back, I never actually did read a single of the Darren Shan books, although just familiar with them from the genre and the covers. So I wasn't even aware that this movie was based on those, until I watched the DVD extras after having seen the movie.I found this movie in a secondhand store, and thought to myself 'a vampire movie with John C. Reilly, well that ought to be unusual', and so I picked it up and decided to give it a go.I will say that, much like "Twilight", this vampire movie is a vampire movie for a teenage audience. However, unlike "Twilight", this movie is not about love, sparkly vampires (though the big hair is here!) or werewolves (again, there is one of those as well). "Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant" is a bit more gloomy and dark compared to the lovefest known as "Twilight". However, that being said, it is not really enough to make it overly suitable for an audience out of their teenage years. I was waiting and hoping for a bit more than the movie did deliver.The story is about a young boy named Darren (played by Chris Massoglia) and his friend Steve (played by Josh Hutcherson) who come across a traveling freak show that is in town for one night only. They go there and enter a world of bizarre oddities and a brooding war between vampires."Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant" does have some rather impressive names to the cast list. Despite my first initial puzzlement about John C. Reilly being in a vampire movie, then he actually did a good job, and comes to show his diversity of being an actor outside the comedy genre. But the movie also has Salma Hayek, Willem Dafoe, Frankie Faison, Ken Watanabe and Ray Stevenson to the cast list. And much has probably be said about this already, but seeing Salma Hayek with a beard was just fun - and most impressively was that she carried it so well.One of the better things in the movie, was the costume design and the set designs. There were so many nice details to the clothing, and especially to the fream show camp. Keep your eyes open here, because there is a lot of really nice treats to behold. And if you get the DVD with the extras on it, I suggest you take the tour of the camp, because it is really worth it."Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant" is a teenage movie and a movie for fans of the Darren Shan books, I am sure. I found it to be entertaining enough for a single watching, but I doubt I will ever make a second watching out of it. It was just a bit too much out of my interest. As much as I have strained to point out the target audience age of this movie, then "Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant" was still more enjoyable than "Twilight" (of which, I mistakenly saw the first movie, and stayed well clear of all that came afterwards).