Thanks for checking out our “The Vampire’s Assistant” review.
Continuing the trend of young adult books being turned into movies comes Cirque Du Freak: The Vampires Assistant. The trailers for the film seemed interesting enough, but right from the first time I saw one, the casting of John C. Reilly as the Vampire Crepsley seemed out of place. It’s almost as if I expected to see Will Ferrell in the next clip. Still, I’ve always enjoyed Reilly’s work in both drama and comedy, so why not as a Vampire? So off I went to see The Vampire’s Assistant. Was it worth it? Yes, but I can’t help but feel there was a lot of missed potential.
THE GENERAL IDEA
The synopsis for The Vampire’s Assistant reads something like this: “A young boy named Darren Shan meets a mysterious man at a freak show who turns out to be a Vampire. After a series of events Darren must leave his normal life and go on the road with the Cirque Du Freak and become a Vampire.”
THE GOOD
The trailers for the movie made it out to be a very thin concept of some young boy bored with his life who decides to run off and become a Vampire for thrills. However, that’s quite misleading and the underlying mythology and background story to the film is MUCH deeper and actually quite rich. There are two fractions of Vampires (One called Vampires and one called Vampanese. The only difference between them is that one kills humans to drink their blood, and the other just knock out humans to drink SOME of their blood. So it’s just a philosophical difference, nothing else) that have lived under a peace truce for 100 years. However, there is an ancient prophecy of the two sides going to war, both lead by young leaders, which brings about the apocalypse. As the film progresses we learn of the role Darren has to play in this. The idea is rich and leaves me quite interested in seeing a sequel (if they ever get to make one).
Where the film tries to be funny… it modestly succeeds. Though I can’t remember any “laugh out loud” moments in the movie, there are a good number of giggles which kept the tone light.
Despite the fact that his role is a relatively small one, Ken Wantanabe always just blows me away and his performance as the head of Cirque du Freak, Mr. Tall, he gives an erie and dark feel of texture to the movie that is otherwise missing from the film. This guy is just amazing.
THE BAD
This film reminds me a lot of the first Underworld movie. A fantastic mythology and background story, that is ultimately wasted. Referenced in passing, but left on the shelf for a much inferior plot line. In the case of The Vampire’s Assistant, the movie abandons this terrific mythology it introduces us to about the Vampire war prophecy for 90% of the movie in favor of whimsical teenage jokes of a kid adjusting to being a Vampire. It was such a wasted opportunity.
I think John C. Reilly is beyond fantastic, but as I suspected from the trailers, this movie is a firm example of miscasting. I was never able to buy him as a fearsome warrior Vampire general, nor was I able to buy him in his softer moments. Essentially, Reilly was a bust in this movie, and without buying into the character of Crepsley, the rest of the film seems to buckle under its own weight.
An efficient movie introduces us to side characters who, without taking up too much valuable screen time, add more dimension and depth to a movie… but not in this movie. We get introduced to a series of freaks who add NOTHING to the movie and just eat up screen time. For example… the snake boy you see in the trailers… if you remove him from the film… NOTHING CHANGES. If you remove Orlando Jones, NOTHING CHANGES. I kept expecting some sort of relevance to be revealed about these characters in relation to the story… but it never comes.
OVERALL
The Vampire’s Assistant has a terrific foundation for a solid movie with an interesting mythology and background, but wastes all that potential as it uses its screen time for other, more useless stuff. John C. Reilly is completely miscast and never works as the key character in the film. I’d be willing to see a sequel because of the potential of the mythology, but I wouldn’t recommend this movie on its own merits to anyone. Over all I give The Vampire’s Assistant a 4 our of 10.
