Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant
DIRECTED BY: Paul Weitz
STARRING: John C Reilly, Chris Massoglia, Josh Hutcherson, Salma Hayek
CERT: 12A
INTERESTING times in the Weitz family, where brothers Chris and Paul – best known for American Pie, American Dreamz and the excellent About A Boy – are both now releasing vampire flicks based on hugely popular books.
Chris is the man at the helm of the upcoming second Twilight movie, New Moon, from Stephanie Meyer’s series of shockingly bad books. While Paul directs Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, based on the Darren Shan novels.
The verdict on Twilight will have to wait but, on the evidence here, it looks like the boys have taken this new direction simply for a laugh – probably a bet to see which of them could make the biggest number of book fans really, really mad.
Which is all well and good, but at least one of the siblings seems intent on making the average movie lover unhappy too. But then, so does almost every other filmmaker in the world.
When a freak show comes to town, young Darren Shan (Massoglia) tags along with his best friend Steve (Hutcherson), a bit of a wild lad who’s not the best of influences on fine upstanding buddy.
At the show, the boys meet Larten Crepsley (Reilly), who long-time bloodsucker fan Steve recognises as a famous 200-year-old vampire. And, well, since you can’t just go stumbling across that kind of information and the go home for tea, Darren and Steve get themselves tangled up with Crepsely and his freaks – who include Mr Tall (Ken Watanabe), Mr Tiny (Michael Cerveris), Rhamus Twobellies (Frankie Faison), Corma Limbs (Jane Krakowski) and the bearded Madame Truska (Salma Hayek).
They also manage to spark a war between rival vampire clans and Darren finds time for a bit of romance with monkey girl Rebecca (Jessica Carlson).
Which somehow isn’t half as interesting as it sounds and nothing like the kind of fun it might have been. You could say that part of the problem is that Weitz is introducing the first of several instalments here and so doesn’t have the time to fully flesh out all of the charcters, but that’s really not much of an excuse for leaving your heroes with little more than bare bones and a flimsy plot – and certainly not when you have a writer like Brian Helgeland on board.
Reilly has fun with his role, but most of the very fine cast has nothing much to do. Salma Hayek and Ken Watanabe are wasted and the great Willem Dafoe might as well have stayed at home than turn up as a vampire with a silly moustache and little else going on.
With Weitz’s background, you’d be forgiven for expecting more laughs, but with vampires, freaks and comedy in the same pot, something has been lost in the mix.

Fantastic Mr Fox
DIRECTED BY: Wes Anderson
VOICES: George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray
CERT: PG
With CGI and 3D being pretty much the standard in animation now, the stop motion technique is a like an artefact from the dawn of art itself. But director Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums, Darjeeling Limited) is nothing if not contrary. And his animated characters are nothing if not like characters from any other Wes Anderson movie.
Based on the book by Roald Dahl, this is the story of Mr Fox (Clooney), who gives up his life of crime and promises Mrs Fox (Streep) that his chicken-stealing days are behind him.
Years down the road, Mr Fox is now a columnist for the local paper and proud dad to young cub Ash (Schwartzman). But like all the finest criminals, Fox finds it impossible to resist pulling one last job. And so he plans a final heist – relieving local farmers Boggis (Brian Cox), Bean (Michael Gambon) and Bunce (Hugo Guinness) of all their chickens. And all their cider, into the bargain.
The farmers respond by waging all-out war on every wild animal in the countryside. Which does not exactly help Mr Fox and his standing in the local critter community.
Simply watching Fantastic Mr Fox takes some adjusting to, but it really is good fun. Clooney brings plenty of mischievous life to the hero and though Streep doesn’t have much room to shine, there are plenty of other fine and quirky contributions in the smaller roles, with Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston, Adrien Brody, Willen Dafoe and Jarvis Cocker all turning up at various points.
It’s a long way from the slick visuals and strict formula of Pixar, but Fantastic Mr Fox is worth the gander.