I walked into Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant with interest. I was intrigued by the film's ad campaign, I liked the director and screenwriters, and the actors present in the film promised a lot of fun. The film started, and even then, I was still in good spirits in a while. The creature and effects work appealed to me, and I was interested in where the story was going. It was about the 40 minute mark or so of the film that the movie started to test my patience. What starts as something imaginative and fun, soon derails into what seems to be a cross between a special effects demo, and an elaborate and overlong set up for numerous sequels.

Coming home from the film, I looked up some information on the series of books that inspired it, and learned that writer-director Paul Weitz (American Dreamz) and co-writer Brian Helgeland (2009's The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3) based their screenplay on the first three novels in the popular young adult gothic-comedy action series. This explains a lot, as the movie seems to have more ideas and characters then it knows what to do with. I felt lost at times. The story seems to speed along, throwing stuff at us like a war between Vampires (those who sip just enough blood from humans to live, but leave their victims alive) and Vampaneze (those who fully embrace their bloodlust, and murder humans mercilessly in order to feed), but never really slowing down long enough for us to get involved or to even care. And like I said, the whole movie ends up being a set up for future movies. Nothing gets resolved, and there's nothing on the screen that will make audiences long for more. I find it funny that the director's brother, Chris Weitz, tried the same thing when he made 2007's The Golden Compass, another movie based on a series of novels that failed because it was all one big set up for further sequels which never got made. Another funny thing; Chris Weitz is directing a competing vampire film - next month's Twilight sequel, New Moon.

But, like I said, things start out interesting enough. Our guide through this world of Vampires, Vampaneze, and freaks is Darren Shan (Chris Massoglia). He's popular, and a bit of an overachieving teen, which comes mostly from the fact that his strict and overly protective parents constantly force him to do his best with a chant of the three things he should strive for in life - "college, career, family". Darren's best friend is Steve (Josh Hutcherson), a rebel bad boy who convinces Darren to sneak away from home one night and visit a traveling freak show that has come to town. The boys are fascinated by the different creatures they see on display, which include a snake boy who's a wannabe indie rock star (Patrick Fugit), a man with two stomachs (Frankie Faison), and a bearded lady (Selma Hayek). What interests the two friends the most, though, is the show's deadly spider trainer, Larten Crepsley (John C. Reilly). Steve recognizes Larten from a painting in one of his books about vampires, and thinks he's the same guy from the book. Through a series of events too complicated to summarize, Darren and Steve sneak backstage, Steve suffers a possibly fatal bite from Larten's spider, and Darren is given the opportunity by Larten to be made a vampire and his personal assistant, in exchange for the antidote that will save Steve's life.

Now that Darren is a "half-vampire" (he can walk in daylight without harm), he's forced to give up the life he once knew, fake his own death, and spend eternity with Larten and his traveling circus of freaks. It's not so bad, though. The creatures are generally good people, at least they are immediately accepting of Darren. We never learn anything about them really, so they often come across as walking special effects played by likable actors. He even gets to strike up a shy relationship with a "monkey girl" (Jessica Carlson), probably because she's the most human looking of most of the freaks, despite the fact she has a tail which she mainly tries to keep hidden. As Darren tries to come to terms with his new life as a vampire, and the prospect of drinking blood, another plot line enters the picture. The evil Vampaneze, who are led by a guy named Mr. Tiny (Michael Cerveris), who bears a striking physical resemblance to the Marvel Comics villain, The Kingpin, and is trying to break the truce between the two vampiric races for reasons that are kind of murky and underdeveloped. Tiny sets his plan into motion by making Steve one of them, and turns him against his former best friend, Darren. As all this was building, and the freaks seemed to play little to no role at all, I started to wonder why the movie needed the freaks in the first place.

That's a big problem for a movie called Cirque du Freak. This is an ungainly, overstuffed film that doesn't explain enough for us to get involved. I really wanted to like this movie. It's attractive to look at, and the performances are there, but the characters are usually thinly drawn. This should come as no surprise, seeing as the story moves by at a rapid pace, tossing ideas and plot lines left and right, but not sticking around long enough for any of them to have an impact on us. And when we do get an explanation, it's usually equally quickly explained and handled in a very sloppy manner. This was a big surprise to me, considering that I have greatly enjoyed many of the past works of writers Weitz and Helgeland. I've obviously not read the books, so I cannot say how faithful the film is to them, or how much got cut out of the adaptation. Still, a movie such as this should work even if you have not read the books, such as the Harry Potter films. I felt lost a lot watching this. Lost, but not quite interested enough to look into the books to find out what I may have missed.
That's not to say it's unwatchable. There's promise here, but not enough to make you want to see more. Unfortunately, that's the whole point of The Vampire's Assistant. As hopeful as the filmmakers seem that this will spring forth a number of profitable sequels, I have a feeling that this will be joining the previously mentioned The Golden Compass and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events as films that just didn't go far enough to launch into the desired franchise.

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