Review of Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009) by Bryan E — 28 Aug 2010

I am a big fan of The Darren Shan Saga written by Darren Shan and being a fan of the novels, I had felt the need to see the movie. I heard not so great reviews on this movie and when I finally saw it, I was surprised that I enjoyed it more than I thought.

The actors were actually really good in the roles, when I first heard that John C. Reilly was going to play Larten Crepsley, I wanted to yell out no, because I couldn't seem him play this role. After the first few minutes of his appearance, I agreed with the film makers of this choice he was actually able to play the role well. Josh Hutcherson as Steve is good with the role playing the anti hero of this series, well cast. Now it comes to the big one, Chris Massoglia as Darren Shan, and I believe he is able to carry on this series, cause I thought he did well as the title character. Not like Edward Speelers in the terrible adaptation of Eragon.

With Eragon mentioned, that movie had problems with adaption and I feel that The Vampire's Assistant has that problem as well. Though it's not a huge issue due to the books are not that complicated as Eragon. I still feel that this film could have possibly been another half an hour long. The character development could have been expanded more and more dialogue spoken. But this film is 1 hour and 49 minutes and its based on the first 3 books, well truthfuly the first two. The film spends most of it's time focusing on the first novel Cirque Du Freak, which I think they managed a pretty good job at adapting. Then entered the novel The Vampire's Assistant and it was very rushed and a sloppy adaption. Finally we come to the last, Tunnels of Blood, which they threw the whole novel completely out the window, none of that book is adapted here. Instead the filmmakers made their own conclusion after the events of The Vampire's Assistant storyline and then borrowed elements from the 8th novel Killers of the Dawn. This move disrupts the entire saga and had me disappointed and it lost a star from the final rating I am giving it. I'm sure if they kept true to the books, the revelation of the Steve character would be more shocking in the later films then in the first. It doesn't work here.

The only other thing I would really complain about are the visuals. Didn't care for the effect of the vampire's running and the wolf man looked pretty bad as well, but other than that, everything else was pretty good.

Overall, I did enjoy the film, but was wishing that the film makers didnt tamper with the source material and kept it more true to the books. I don't know if there will be a sequel to this film, as this one didn't get the greatest reviews, nor did it receive a lot of money at the box office. I just hope they do present another film as the potential of this series isn't a complete dud.