'Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant' review

John C. Reilly and Salma Hayek (Credit: David Lee/Universal)

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High school students Darren Shan (Chris Massoglia) and his best friend Steve (Josh Hutcherson) have a taste for the dark side. Their interests take them to a traveling freak show where Steve is convinced one of the star attractions, Larten Crepsley (John C. Reilly), is actually a vampire. He’s right, but Darren will be the one to discover the truth and become a vampire himself. As Darren is thrust into a dangerous new world, jealous Steve gets involved with vampire rivals the vampaneze (they’re the ones who actually kill their victims with bloodsucking; vampires just stun, snack and run). The film also makes time for a circus tent full of freaks (including Salma Hayek as a bearded lady and Ken Watanabe as the imposing Mr. Tall), an ancient dandy of a vampire played by Willem Dafoe, a band of ugly little gnomes created with bad CGI and a monkey-tailed love interest for Darren.

The buzz: The biggest thing to hit movie theaters since “Harry Potter” or “Lord of the Rings”! Or at least “Twilight”? Universal, the studio behind this adaptation of the young adult targeted “Saga of Darren Shan” literary series, definitely intends “Cirque du Freak” to launch a new franchise. But intentions are one thing, and achievements quite another. Comparisons have already been drawn between this film—directed by Paul Weitz (“In Good Company”)—and “The Golden Compass”—the failed attempt to launch a franchise directed by Paul’s brother, Chris Weitz.

The verdict: If you can’t launch a franchise, at least tell a solid story. Unfortunately it looks like two strikes and out for this lame, overstuffed, directionless action-comedy-horror-romance-teen movie hybrid. Reilly’s performance—which feels at least a little bit inspired by Gene Wilder’s iconic work in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”—keeps the movie watchable. Each of his line readings has just enough bite that you’ll follow him anywhere. But he’s the only one. Director Weitz seems to have the right light touch for the material (although the books are supposedly much darker), but he’s helpless to make much sense of the pile-up of characters and events leading nowhere in particular. There’s a big climatic brawl (just like in “Twilight”) but no satisfying resolution, no sense of characters coming into their own, and no feeling that the world that’s been created was interesting enough to sustain one movie, let alone several.

Did you know? The classical horror score that’s one of the film’s strongest elements was composed by Stephen Trask, the composer-lyricist behind “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”

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