CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE VAMPIRE'S ASSISTANT Post Release

[devincf]

http://chud.com/articles/articles/21...ANT/Page1.html

[D.T.]

Things to do today:

1.) Take the dog out.
2.) Do dishes from dinner last night.
3.) Update Facebook status.
4.) Develop shitty, self-indulgent vampire series.
6.) Switch laundry
7.) Sell shitty, self-indulgent vampire series to Hollywood studio.
8.) Go to work.

[Xagarath Ankor]

I'd agree with Devin- this was actually, despite some iffy dialogue and the wooden lead, surprisingly likeable. I'd take it over at least some of the Harry Potters, say.

[Cleo]

Been waiting for this film since I was 11, I was so fucking excited for this. Also nervous, it could have been a huge mess.

Overall, I'm not disappointed. I mean, this is my biggest fandom so I was going to be nit picky, but I loved a lot of the movie. The first half was perfect. Willem Dafoe was a perfect piece of casting, John C Reilly even more so. I was not a fan of composite character monkey girl (made up of a girl who gets munched by the wolf man in the first book and the love interest from the second) or Darren's family showing up at the end. I was very, very happy with Mr Tiny, with the look of the Cirque and with most of the obviously necessary changes to condense three books into one film.

Looking at the $$ this is not going to be getting a sequel, which is hugely disappointing for me as the second trilogy is the best, and includes my favourite book of the entire series (Trials of Blood). I would recommend anyone to read the books, and the movie is definitely worth a watch.

[Raziel]

I know it's aimed at a teen audience, but it looks awfully cheesy.

[Luca S.]

Hey, this is a pretty good movie. You guys should watch it.

[PsycheOut00]

Especially if you don't know the difference vs. film director and 2nd unit director. In this case, one much more blatantly talented than the other. And not in that order.

"Take it over some of the Harry Potters", huh?

[Xion]

I thought it was a decent "family" vampire movie. I mean, with the popularity of Twilight in the young girl sector, this is the movie I'd rather take my daughter to. The only problem is she's 5 years old. 5 YEARS OLD. And she really wanted to see this, as much for the "monkey girl!!!" as for the vampires. Her mom, in her infinite wisdom, let the kid watch Twilight so now it's vampires this, vampires that. Hopefully when she's older I can segue her into better vampire stuff, but we'll see.

I ended up relenting and taking her to it since, in Canada, it's PG. She's seen stuff like Transformers 2 so there's no way this is any more "adult" than that, which was a relief since I expected a bit more scary.

She loved it for its weirdness and the "clown vampire", etc. I liked the witty script and great secondary character work. And yes, John C. Reilly is the star but Ray Stevenson is no slouch either in this one. Was surprised to see him.

I don't want to turn this into a discussion about age-appropriateness. I'm talking about a 5 year old who loved The Dark Crystal by age 3 and is a huge, huge fan of Coraline which is a pretty frightening "kids" movie. She's more like me when I was her age than other kids who are censored and sheltered by their parents. Nuff said.

[Xagarath Ankor]

Originally Posted by PsycheOut00

Especially if you don't know the difference vs. film director and 2nd unit director. In this case, one much more blatantly talented than the other. And not in that order.

"Take it over some of the Harry Potters", huh?

So we're forgetting the choppy pacing and poor plotting most of that series have as stand-alone films, then.

[PsycheOut00]

Sure. As long as you keep in mind the movies are adaptations of much thicker and much denser books than Cirque du Freak (sorry, of these I've just read the 1st one). In HP's case, I agree they are certainly slavish adaptations, but you just can't compare, say, the prowess of the series' lesser directors -OK, I'll just put Chris Columbus here and, in case of name recognition, David Yates*- against Chris Weitz behind the camera. No, really, I was seriously astounded -astounded I tell ya!- as to how much his work differs with whoever directed the 2nd unit or, say, the action scenes. Maybe I was having a bad day, but I seriously felt as if I was watching two different movies at once.

...Or maybe I was expecting a much better movie, a franchise starter even, coming from the hand of Brian Helgeland.

* I take it you're referring to Order of the Phoenix here? Cause it can't be about Half-Blood Prince.