Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant
After a truly fantastical opening credits sequence, I worried that Cirque du Freak might have exhausted its quality potential. Thankfully, it had not. Adapting the first three of Darren Shan’s books and having a whimsical and sardonic dark tone, this film will inevitably be compared to Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. That film also squished three wonderful books into one passable film and had an outstanding cast. To compare them is a disservice to both, however. I have not read Shan’s books, but The Vampire’s Assistant made me want to. A key difference between these works is the generally more sunny and big-picture tone of Cirque du Freak, compared to the cynical, intimate feel of Unfortunate Events. The filmgoing experience is very different but the superficial similarities might make you prejudge and miss this one, if the other one didn’t do it for you.
The real appeal of Cirque du Freak is the engaging cast of characters. Our sweet goody two-shoes titular hero (named Darren Shan!) gets himself into a pretty serious pickle, but has a fantastic network of freaks and outcasts by his side. Key among these is John C. Reilly, the vampire who makes it all happen. Reilly has always solidly marched the line between weird and sympathetic, and this role benefits from this and his wonderful, dry sense of humor. Fellow freak-show denizens have small yet titillating parts, sucking you in for future tales to tell and flitting away to let the central relationships in the story play out. We meet, briefly, Salma Hayek, Orlando Jones, Ken Watanabe, Patrick Fugit, Jane Krakowski, and Jessica Carlton. We want more of all of them. But for now, we must have exposition. A war is brewing between the Vampires and the Vampaneze, and you can probably guess that Universal really wants to have a sequel explore this plot element, which drops in at the end, Lord of the Rings style. Meanwhile, we have families to abandon, best friends to negotiate, and teachers to complain about (Galaxy Quest’s Patrick Breen, always a hoot).
The funny bits are amusing, the action entertaining, the themes simple, the promise of future tales tantalizing, and the overall feel of the movie is more charming than epic or scary. It has the simple feel of a Young Adult series but some of the same adult-friendly wit that Mr. Snicket engages in. I love these people and I want to see more of them. I also want to see more story involving Mr. Tiny (Michael Cerveris, in artificial layers of blubber), who was a delectably prissy and menacing creature. I want more! Some book adaptations feel like they left something out; this movie is dense but still just a sample size. The creepy small CG creatures aren’t particularly compelling but I suspect they will become important. Meanwhile, I’ll grab the book and see if it sates my need to wallow around in this fun and adventurous world. The only real deficit is that the stakes, whatever they are, never feel all that high, despite death and battle and soul sucking and so forth. So, maybe it’s a little frothy? It’s still fun.
MPAA Rating PG 13
Release date 10/23/09
Time in minutes 109
Director Paul Weitz
Studio Universal Pictures
