The Vampire's Assistant

It seems that in the past couple of years vampires have become popular in our pop culture once again. Now we have the Twilight saga, numerous books, a TV show, and a new saga based on a book called Cirque Du Freak. Now, in my opinion, there's also another trend with these vampire shows/films...they STINK! Sorry Twilight fans but "Twilight" was one of the worst movies ever made. Well this trend continues on with John C. Reilly's new film, "Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant."
At the start of the film we see teenager Daren(Chris Massoglia) who has a great life and parents that seem to have his life all planned out for him. Then there's Steve his best friend who's the exact opposite. Steve is a bad influence that doesn't really care about his life and tries to drag Daren down with him. Soon the two friends receive a flier for a freak show coming to their town. At the show they see all kinds of weird people including a vampire named Larten Crepsley(John C. Reilly). After the show Daren steals Crepsely's spider which results in several things. Steve gets bitten which results in Daren pleading for help from Crepsley which results in Crepsely making a deal: The antidote in exchange for Daren becoming his assistant. This means that Daren must become a half-vampire. Soon after Daren embarks on a mysterious journey with Crepsley to find out his destiny.
As you might see from the paragraph above, the story itself is very interesting and has potential but instead it ends up being confusing and all over the place. Too many characters, though creative and unique, are introduced throughout this film and make it all the more hard to follow. It seems like there were too many things we have to comprehend in the film and everything was scattered. The main plot and concept of the whole saga isn't really revealed until three/fourths through the film so basically, "Vampire's Assistant" is setting itself up for a sequel. We see set-ups like this many times mostly in comic book films (X-Men, Spider-Man) where the first film is devoted to the back stories and origins of the main characters (the set-up film) and the sequel gets right to the action. That is the proper way to do set-up films. This film does it the wrong way focusing more on plot rather than character development and that is a large problem for the film.
That being said, the story for "Vampire's Assistant" is an interesting one and it is fun to see all of the "freaks" the are created for this story. Each one is creative with their shape, size, and even their personalities(an example of this is a teen who looks like a lizard, despite his deformity, he wants to be a rock star and tries to sell records at the shows). Like most vampire stories, we see several new powers the vampires posses like super spit and knock-out gas. All together, these things combine to show us a new world that is fun to see on screen.
Sadly, what helps bring this film down is the dialogue. The movie was filled with unneeded cursing, bad dialogue, and awkward moments which prevented the movie from being an entertaining action film. Also, the names of the characters are kind of disappointing and just plain weird. Some of the names are Mr. Tall, Mr. Tiny, the snake boy, etc.
The acting wasn't anything truly special, although I was impressed at how well John C. Reilly played his part. The action scenes were entertaining but the thing is, the things that I just mentioned only make up about half of what a good movie should include. Things like character development, plot, dialogue were absent in "Vampire's Assistant" and so this is what I have to say: "Cirque Du Freak"...a freak show indeed. I give it two stars out of five.
"Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant" has a running time of 108 minutes. The film is rated PG-13 for sequences of intense supernatural violence and action, disturbing images, thematic elements, and some language.