Directed by: Paul Weitz
Starring: Chris Massoglia, Josh Hutcherson, John C. Reilly, Ray Stevenson
Other Actors of Note: Orlando Jones, Salma Hayek
Plot: A young boy named Darren Shan meets a mysterious man at a freak show who turns out to be a Vampire. After a series of events Darren must leave his normal life and go on the road with the Cirque Du Freak and become a Vampire. Taken from www.imdb.com.
Movies based on young adult books! Movies based on vampire fiction! Movies based on vampire fiction involving friendship, romance, and life lessons! Sweet Jesus, why don't I just put a gun barrel in my mouth now!
I was lured into "Cirque du Freak" on 3 levels of trickery: 1) John C. Reilly in a role that didn't look retarded, B) An effective trailer that made it look like a cross between "Little Monsters" and "Nightbreed" and III) I didn't know it was based on a series of books made for angsty tweens.
Now mind you when I found out the third fact it didn't bother me because it still looked better than "Twilight" and I actually sat through that. Also at least author Darren Shan had the balls to admit that his book was nothing more than fantasy role-playing with himself as the main character.
It's about Darren Shan (Hey, that's the author's name!) played by Chris Massoglia and his horribly convoluted journey from nobody to... nobody with fangs! So he and his rebel-without-a-cause best friend Steve (played by the ludicrously douchey and terribly untalented actor Josh Hutcherson) do some angsty teen shit, Darren gets in trouble so his parents make him promise to stop being friends with Steve, he agrees but continues to be friends anyway.
Steve gets very upset about this for reasons unexplained (perhaps he was planning to ask for Darren's father's blessing to marry his son, or perhaps he was just getting the menstrual cramps real hard) and makes constant snide remarks about being Darren's "secret" best friend. (Editor's Note: Guys don't care about this! Especially not teenagers!) Suddenly an elaborately creepy limo comes out of an inexplicable cloud of fog and drops an invitation at their feet. The invitation is to a freak show called Cirque du Freak. (Hey, that's the name of this movie!)
So they go to the freak show and we're treated to a bunch of mystifying acts of freakdom which is followed by the final act of vampire Larten Crepsley (John C. Reilly) and his amazing CGI spider that looks like the one that bit Spider-Man. We're now treated to an arbitrary flashback/monologue that explains how spiders make Darren tingle in his awkward teenage boy parts. He immediately falls in love with the spider and decides, naturally, to steal it.
As Darren goes to steal the spider he is almost caught by Crepsley, but hides behind a curtain and watches as Willem Defoe, playing some character that isn't important but does prove that he's a shoe-in for Gomez Addams if they ever want to make another "Addams Family" movie, enters followed by Steve.
Steve throws some generic whiny CW bullshit about and spills out enough angst to fill the mosh pit at a "My Chemical Romance" concert 3 times over. It seems he saw a picture of Crepsley in his "vampire book" and he wants to be a vampire because his mother is pregnant with cancer and his father beats him with a garden hose full of bees or some shit.
Naturally Crepsley denies, because Jesus there are enough whiny immortal losers running around sodomizing underage girls in the world. So Steve marches off in a huff, threatening to kill Crepsley. It is then that Darren makes some noise and runs outside where the scary limo from earlier pulls up and a creepy looking fat man urges him to get in.
Now being a wimpy white boy alone and defenseless in a shitty part of town he decides to hop in the care and meets Mr. Tiny (Michael Cerveris) and Murlaugh (Ray Stevenson) who probably has siblings named Murcry, and Murmaider. Some shit happens that really isn't important.
So Darren is keeping this spider in his locker and it gets loose, so naturally Steve tries to kill it in an inexplicably angry moment that seems to combine retard strength and shaken baby syndrome into some sort of mutant freak of acting. Naturally Steve gets bit, unfortunately the spider is like uber poisonous (and that's uber with an umlaut, not a regular u, that means it's hard core) and rather than giving Steve the power to do whatever a spider can, it gives him the power to die super hard core like that old guy in "Arachnaphobia."
So Darren comes to get the antidote from Crepsley. Crepsley agrees to do it on the one condition that Darren must now become a vampire because... that's never really explained. Darren agrees, he dies, comes back, and joins a freakshow.
But see, vampires are good folk that only take small amounts of blood from humans while the monstrous vampanese (a moniker that really only sounds increasingly more racist each time it's spoken aloud: I'm sure this was the least offensive name Shan came up with after his editor shot down his original choices of "Vietnampanese", "Vampanegros", and "Dirty Vampire Jews") appear to suck blood the old fashion way. Naturally Mr. Tiny makes Steve a Vampanese as well and it leads up to a climax that promises to be as extreme as at least 5 bags of Cool Ranch Doritos. (Maybe even 6!)
Chris Massoglia gives a bland soul-less performance only slightly more emotive than Zooey Deschanel's Stepford-Actress performance from "The Happening." It doesn't really help that Darren is kind of a dickhead and more than a little bit of a bigot. It would be really hard to like this guy if he was played by a good actor. As it stands, Massoglia just makes him suck all that much more.
Of course Massoglia deserves a big burlap sack filled with SAG awards compared to Josh Hutcherson. Massoglia's bad performance can at least be chalked up to that he's been in like 5 things in his career, but Hutcherson's been acting for a while and not only has a sub-par child actor matured into a major douchebag, he's matured into one that couldn't act his way out of a paper sack. While Massoglia gives a dull dispassionate performance, Hutcherson seems to actively go out of his way to suck.
Ray Stevenson chews the scenery here in ways you could never imagine. Seeing normally quiet and scary Stevenson play an over-the-top campy vampire lord is about as jarring as coming home to see a large man sitting at the table wearing your mother's flayed face for a mask and pretending that everything is normal. Though maybe that's the point, maybe the uncomfortable feeling you get from watching Stevenson ham it up is intentional and even campy he does a brilliant job (certainly better than he did in "Punisher: War Zone")
The big surprise, and the sole redeeming grace of this movie, is John C. Reilly. Reilly plays a character that is sarcastic, witty, deep, and sympathetic with the sort of grace that you never could have imagined an actor like John C. Reilly pulling off. He certainly proves that he's capable of pulling off serious roles even if this role suffers from Dennis Hopper syndrome (Great performance by an awesome actor playing a shitty role in a godawful movie.)
A brief nod to special effects here: Michael Cerveris' fat suit is so well done that I literally had no clue he wasn't really morbidly obese till I saw he was the same guy from "Fringe." I salute you, make-up department.
Now as you can tell by this review so far that's been dripping with thick greasy sarcasm, the plot is contrived, mostly pointless, and pretty fucking stupid. Not only is the friction between Darren and Steve unrealistic, it's played out with all the grace of an episode of "Degrassi."
Honestly, the big weak link her is the storyline. Instead of concentrating on the story of a newly-born vampire and his trials and tribulations with evil vampires the movie would have been far more interesting if it covered the members of the freakshow being set upon by the forces of evil. Of course, the screenwriter couldn't change the books but still. (Though I do understand an early script for "The Vampire's Apprentice" was about a 20-something loser joining a guild of elite assassins that get their orders from a magical loom that's translated by a swearing Morgan Freeman. Don't know what happened to that.)
Though if you absolutely have to keep the vampires (and the "Twilight" crowd seems to dictate that you do) then the freak show is immaterial. Honestly it's a meaningless talisman in the plot and really has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. The author and screenwriter should've just picked a side and stuck with it.
Of course, who am I to judge "Cirque du Freak" as the piece of shit I saw it as. Clearly this movie wasn't "for" me, it's for young adults (meaning 15-17 year olds, and immature 18-30 year olds) so naturally it's poorly written crap with only the vaguest hint of a plot and characters that could only mystify an audience that made "The Hills" a hit TV show.
In short, "Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant" is a bad movie that is not without its charms (John C. Reilly and Ray Stevenson) that just barely seem to redeem its flaws (bad writing, barely-there-plot, terrible young leads) so while it's not utter shit, it's far from a good movie.
I give "Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant" a 3 out of 5. John C. Reilly's performance manages to keep it out of the 2 out of 5 range by a hair. Plus hey, it's better than "Twilight", and that counts for something, dammit!
But hey, if you like this angsty vampire shit then you're probably already started furiously rubbing your damp crotch while your limited addition Edward Cullen vibrating butt-plug brings you to slow gothic nirvana. And hey, it's cool if you enjoy a bad movie, everybody enjoys at least one. Besides, if you're embarrassed then maybe it can just be your secret best movie.
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