Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant
Originally published at Ms. Amused. You can comment here or there.
After a string of not so good movies… nice to see something where the story is decent and the writing not mangled!
I’d been dragging my feet on watching this just because I feel so scarred still from the hour of Walk Hard The Dewey Cox story that I’d subjected myself to. I’ve loved John C Reilly for a long time, I can’t even remember what I first saw him in but I remember recognizing and being excited to see him in Magnolia so it’s a ways back. But Judd Apatow’s* touch is so poisonous that I was afraid that Walk Hard’s suckiness would ruin this one.
But then last night, my best friend twitters a rave for this movie and that gives me the courage to give it a go.
And it was every bit as silly and fun and *enjoyable* as she described. John C Reilly is gold again and excellent as the “vampire” who decides to take an assistant.
I know this is based on a book series but I didn’t have any idea what the movie was about but then again I am a bit of a story purist in that I prefer to let the story be told in the movie instead of in the trailers and reviews. Not always possible to avoid it but generally as much as possible, I avoid hearing anything about the plots of movies for this reason. Sometimes I don’t even know the premise. And that was the case for this one. Aside from what one could deduce from the title of the movie, I didn’t know anything.
Because of that, I’ll not summarize the plot or even the premise here. Google it if you really must know. Just go watch it if you like fanastic (remember the original definition of this word), artful movies full of great character actors playing memorable characters.
Familiar faces are the kid from Bridge to Terabithia (and others… ok I looked it up, his name is Josh Hutcherson), Patrick Fugit (with a subtle nod to his breakout role in Almost Famous), Salma Hayek (who is making a habit of playing beautiful but imperfect women in what I consider to be her way of reminding us all that “beauty” is only skin deep), Willem Dafoe (a creepy character type and a stellarly fun addition to his resume of creepy character types), Orlando Jones (who keeps popping up in all these movies and I love him for it), Jane Krakowski (who shines when playing the absurd!), Frankie Faison (I doubt you’ll know the name but you’ll recognize his face).
This reminds me a bit of Carnivale in the first season before it got so dreary only Cirque Du Freak stays much more upbeat the whole time despite the conflict & drama in it.
Oh interesting to note that Josh was also in Kicking & Screaming with Will Ferrell, John C Reilly’s “Hollywood Doppelganger”.
Recommendation: WATCH IT, LOVE IT, BUY IT! This movie will be mine…
I really hope there will be more. It was based on a series and they definitely indicated that the story isn’t done, just this chapter of it.
* Disclaimer: I do like 40 yr old Virgin and I did give Funny People a try and ended up really liking it but the rest of his stuff that I’ve made myself see are among the worst brain-putrifying things I ever have seen (ie Knocked Up and Superbad) and my standards are low.