Cirque du Freak

Cirque du Freak_360P

best acting per as instructed on the books

hhcg

We are Don and Albert, The Alias Men. We love movies and review the newest and most talked about movies on our blog, The Alias Men. Here are some excerpts from our reviews of "Cirque du Freak: the Vampire's Assistant." Don's Take: "On the heels of "Where The Wild Things Are," another children's book recently adapted into a film, PaulWeitz of "Weitz Brothers" fame brings popular teen novel, Darren Shan's "Cirque du Freak" to the silver screen. Ironically, in stark contrast to the film's proclivity toward whimsy and otherworldliness, Weitz's film ultimately proves to be formulaic and unoriginal at its core." Albert's Take: "How fitting that "Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant" arrives a week before Halloween: It plays like a movie-length trick-or-treat, affording some respectable actors the chance to don garish costume and emote in ways that don't seem human , let alone in character, all without consequence for the rest of their year -- or their careers, I should say. Imagine Willem Dafoe done up as Gomez Addams, fretting like Vincent Price, and you have a good idea of what the movie's like. The movie does have its moments – the screenplay contains a lot of sly winks at the audience, and the stars obviously relished their roles instead of phoning them in – but its lockstep formula and its tumors of exposition betray its purpose as a would-be franchise starter. See it if you can't wait for the next "Twilight" and could stomach an imitation. Otherwise, skip it." Please visit our blog and read our full reviews. Search us on google using key words: "alias men blogspot." Feel free to leave your thoughts on the movies in our comments section!

Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, based on the popular series of books by Darren Shan, is a fantasy-adventure about a teenager who unknowingly breaks a 200-year-old truce between two warring factions of vampires. Pulled into a fantastic life of misunderstood sideshow freaks and grotesque creatures of the night, one teen will vanish from the safety of a boring existence and fulfill his destiny in a place drawn from nightmares. 16-year-old Darren (Chris Massoglia) was like most kids in his suburban neighborhood. He hung out with his best friend Steve (Josh Hutcherson), got decent grades and usually stayed out of trouble. But when he and his buddy stumble upon a traveling freak show, things begin to change inside Darren. That's the exact moment when a vampire named Larten Crepsley (John C. Reilly) turns him into something, well, bloodthirsty. Newly undead, he joins the Cirque Du Freak, a touring sideshow filled with monstrous creatures from a snakeboy and a wolfman to a bearded lady (Salma Hayek) and a gigantic barker (Ken Watanabe). As Darren flexes his newfound powers in this dark world, he becomes a treasured pawn between the vampires and their deadlier counterparts. And while trying to survive, one boy will struggle to keep their brewing war from devouring what's left of his humanity. Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant 10/10

CDF is arguably my favorite book series of all time, so I really tried to go into this with an open mind. Judging on it's own merits, I would rate the movie a 4 or 5: barely worth watching until the end, but not quite bad enough to bring back to Blockbuster before it's over. Judging it as an interpretation of the books, it doesn't even deserve a 1. Rule #1: if you're making a movie out of a series of popular books, you need to keep more than the characters names. And that is about all they left the same. Mannerisms, appearances, plot, everything was changed. Even the tagline for the movie is wrong, because the vampires in this series aren't immortal. The plot is about what you'd get if you threw the first 3 books of the series into a blender, dumped that into a tank of starved, ravenous sharks, then let all of histories greatest sushi chefs ginsu it until nothing recognizable remained. One thing that keeps popping up: YES this is a vampire movie, but NO, Twilight fans, this series was around for about a decade before the solar-powered disco balls ruined vampire fiction for us all. John C. Reilly gives probably the best performance in the film. While a good bit different than described in the books, his portrayal of Mr. Crepsley was at least entertaining to watch. William Dafoe appears for all of about 5 minutes as the supposed-to-be battle hardened veteran vampire Gavner Purl, except Dafoe looks and vaguely acts like John Waters. Ken Watanabe is merely decent as the circus owner, Mr. Tall. Michael Cerveris' character, Desmond Tiny, is supposed to be the embodiment of cold, bone chilling evil, but comes across as the flamboyant uncle you try to avoid at family reunions. I have nothing to say about Salma Hayek, who is there for eye candy first, and plot significance second. Finally, Ray Stevenson almost comes off as menacing as the villain Murlough, even though the character is supposed to have dark purple skin and glowing red eyes, hair, lips and nails, but following the source material is for squares Daddy-O! But Chris Massoglia, playing the lead role, literally could not have been worse. I've used this analogy before, but I have seen corpses show more emotion than this kid. In a scene when he has to fake his own death(undoubtedly causing his family and loved ones incredible pain and suffering, mind you) he acts as if he could be going to a pizza parlor for dinner. In the books, Darren is an impulsive hothead. In the film, Massoglia could have been replaced with a Bozo the Clown blow up doll and you would have seen more emotion (at least the doll would smile). Yeah, yeah, one could argue that he's young and inexperienced, but I don't buy that. I've known first time actors, many of whom were much younger than Massoglia, do much better jobs than he did. Hell, Anna Paquin won an Oscar when she was 12! If there is any justice in the world, Chris Massoglia will never work again and Edward Norton will finally win an Oscar. I did get one brief laugh towards the end though, when Reilly was fighting Ray Stevenson's character, and that was only because in the books Darren remarks on how short their fight was (supposed to be) because "they weren't trying to please action-hungry audiences", when the fight scene was nothing but spectacle filled, drawn out filth attempting to do just that. If you would like an emotionally driven, decently written vampire saga, read the Cirque du Freak books. If you'd like to see a book-film adaptation so bad that some electricity might actually refuse to power it, watch this movie. 2/10, and that's me being generous.

Unable to understand the low ratings that critics are giving this film. From the dazzling and witty opening credits through the delightful cast and story line, this film delivers great visuals, charm and one of John C. Reilly's best performances to date! A little disappointed that we didn't see enough of Willem Dafoe, But Salma Hayek was charming! Young adults will enjoy the freak show characters and vampire storyline; older viewers will get a kick out of the humor and identifying actors from other films. I haven't read the books, but I sure would love to see what happens on the next day as the film comes to a close. FOLLOW YOUR HEART, FORGET THE NAY-SAYERS AND SEE THIS FILM WHILE YOU CAN!

The movie is quite entertaining, I think several scenes in the movie are much more successfully handled as in book itself. (I am only familiar with book one, yet.) So, I liked the way as scriptwriters anticipate some future elements of the story: for example by the sudden visions of Madame Truska or by bringing forth the character of Gavner -played by the always excellent Williem Dafoe- into this "prelude" movie. I have also very like that smiling facial expression performed by John C. Reilly by the end of the move (for this small gesture prefigured that affectionate relationship and love that Larten will feel toward his assistant, Darren. I liked the scenes with the Snake Boy, Evra, who is much for significant character in the movie than in Book 1 (particularly in the pompous Circus-scene of the movie). I big fight between Larten and Murlaugh in the cemetery was just great The flaws are (I mention here only a few): Darren's relationship with his parents is depicted in a very stereotypical way in the picture (I know, the parents here are just background-figures, but still) I have also missed the scenes with the tarantella, Madame Octa. The scene: stealing of Octa by Darren is extremely weak, and not excited at all. The special telepathic relationship between the spider and its trainer in not explained or discussed in the movie at all, and the filmmakers omitted some of the most interesting "kunst" Octa capable of (like the wet spinned on Lartens mouth, etc.) Octa was not controlled by the voice of the flute, that was just a secondary thing!! But she was controlled by human thoughts in the book!! Performances: Male actors steal the show. I especially like the performance by Michael Cerveris as Mr. Tiny. The acting of John C. Reilly (as Larten Crepsley) was a very-very pleasant surprise for me. I can congratulate from the casting-director and for the producers of their choice. Jessica Carlson (in the role of the monkey-girl, Rebecca) was charming and natural- including her tail  The CGI: unfortunately nothing special, or "revolutunary new", just the usual good-level work. The Cinematography/Lightning: excellent choice for the the basic mood/atmosphere of the movie. The colors and tones are quite vivid, not so digitally soft and pale like in the trend today in fantasy movies (like in the last HP for example). This braver, more intense coloring was good for Cirque du Freak. I must praise the work of Tom Woodruff Jr. and his faithful partner: the "monster-costumes", and make up-effects were absolutely perfect! In my opinion: It was a good start. I think that this movie desires the love of younger audiences, and also hope the studio-moguls will give a chance for the makers for continue this franchise after this start. My rating: 7.5 (out of 10).

My tween-age daughter has become a fan of all things vampire thanks to the "Twilight" books and films, so she asked me to take her to see this movie, even though it's based on a different series. Although "Cirque du Freak" shows its "young adult" target audience, it was not as bad as many teen-oriented films I have seen. It had an interesting, if simplistic, storyline, and was effectively filmed. I agree with the comments that especially commend the Freak Show scene as an early high point, but the rest of the story moved along at about the right pace, and I never found myself bored. I'm told the teen lead was very attractive, but he's not much of an actor. His evil counterpart, played by Josh Hutcherson of "RV," was somewhat better. I'm not a real John Reilly fan, but he did a good job in his leading role. Willem Dafoe was wasted playing, essentially, a vampire version of John Waters. I would hope that Ken Watanabe and Salma Hayek would have a bit more to do in future installments. Ditto Orlando Jones, who hasn't done much since the horrible "Evolution" nearly killed his career. I also hope the character of Mr. Tiny is written better in the future; this guy was a pain to watch, and came off more like a sweaty pedophile than a supernatural referee or whatever the hell he was supposed to be. Parents: nothing to worry about here. I'm not even sure how it came in at PG-13, unless there was some mild profanity sprinkled in that I don't remember. This might be a little complicated for little ones, but ages 8 and over shouldn't be scared by anything they see here. Best of all, it's not too painful for adults to watch if you must. Then again, I'm a veteran of the Pokemon movies; I've been to movie hell, so I can sit through anything now.

This movie was actually very entertaining. I didn't expect much going in but I actually liked the story. While I thought it was going to be a Twilight ripoff, I think it actually made in fun of Twilight a little bit--which made for great fun. The acting was better than expected. I was especially surprised by John C. Reilly. I absolutely loved his character! I agree with others when I say that it's actually refreshing to see him in a more serious role. The movie was interesting, unique, caring, and humorous. I definitely recommend seeing the movie. I think it's going to be a great series. I look forward to seeing the next movie.