.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

When Interview with the Vampire was casting back in the 1990's, there was a big hubbub on Tom Cruise playing vampire Lestat. You couldn't buy a magazine or read an article on the production with the doubters voicing their strong opinion on how Cruise was an unpopular choice for the lead vampire.

Interview with the Vampire ended up being a modest hit grossing a quarter of a billion dollars in worldwide gross, and in hindsight, I think we can all agree that Cruise was not the reason the film is not held in the highest regard when discussing the best vampire flicks of all time.

Similar casting outrage was heard - albeit on a softer scale - with the casting of John C. Reilly as vampire Larten Crepsley in Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, the new comedy/horror, mess of a movie out this week.

Cirque du Freak is a confusing and strange little film which follows two teenage kids named Darren and Steve (played by Chris Massoglia and Josh Hutcherson) who happen to stumble upon tickets for Cirque du Freak - a circus of bizarre and outlandish characters that include characters that looked crossed between the collective minds of Tim Burton and Clive Barker.

Upon meeting Larten Crepsley, Steve recognizes him as a vampire from old books and longs to be one of the walking, fanged undead. What happens in the next hour is confusing and so convoluted that I could not give it proper space even with 1,000+ words allotted to this review. I can comment that there is a creepy spider, a vampire war and some unique freaks that will cross paths with the characters before the film is done. Darren also becomes a vampire's assistant which means he must first die and there is the awkwardness of the family grieving and the audience being confused as to their own feelings in a movie that goes from thriller/adventure to sappy drama.

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant is based on a series of books by Darren Shan. Having not read the books, I cannot make any comparison to the film version, but every character seemed to have motivations and purposes that were not fully explored in Cirque du Freak. Director Paul Weitz, who was behind the camera for American Pie and In Good Company, doesn't seem to be a natural of mixing the non-human characters, drama and comedy in the same frames.

But it's not all bad. I liked the fact that vampire's are different from the frightening undead that we grew up with. They don't kill people and they can walk in sunlight (just not for long periods of time). These fresh ideas were like crisp mountain air thanks to the plethora of vampire films that are all over the screen and television these days.

So, there's the casting. I have to admit that I like John C. Reilly. Watch Chicago again and you can see how talented an actor he can be. But as Larten Crepsley in Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, he just doesn't come across as believable enough. He is not the root of the film's problems, but he doesn't help patch a few of the big holes either. And surrounded by Salma Hayak, Ken Wantanabe, Patrick Fugit and Orlando Jones, Reilly was like a square box trying to fit into a round hole.

Cirque du Freak is definitely a rental.