Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (6/10)

What's most freaky were'nt the freaks, but how Chris Massoglia has such an uncanny resemblance to Ashton Kutcher. From his hair down to the way he talks, I couldn't help but feel I was looking at a younger Kutcher; minus the charisma and acting chops.I enjoyed the premise and the story. I am actually eager to see what happens in the sequel and I hope they make it. Even though it wasn't exactly very original, but it did give vampires a different outlook, like Daybreakers. So there's a freshness to it.I enjoyed the work of the rest of the cast, and what a big cast. John C. Reily especially, he has such magnetism, even more so as a vampire. But I thought Josh Hutcherson's character was over the top. They made him as the bad egg too obvious too early. And one thing I don't agree with was how Massoglia and Hutcherson can be best friends when they were so different to begin with. I personally can relate to Massoglia's character and felt that I would never have a friend like Hutcherson. But that's just me. The best character was from Michael Cerveris's Mr. Tiny. I thought he did a fantastic job with it. Unfortunately, the rest of the bigger names like Willem Dafoe, Ken Watanabe and Salma Hayek were lost.I thought the spider subplot didn't play out to its entirety. But I guess it was just a mean to and end. A clearer explanation other than "an interest in spiders" would have been better. Hence, I do not agree with how Massoglia stole the spider.The worst scene in the movie was how Hutcherson kept wanting to have a look at the spider while at school and then tried to kill it while Massoglia just watched. That whole sequence just didn't work for me. It reminded me of that ridiculous scene when Harry Potter in that first movie was jumping up and down on his bed trying to grab one of the many letters falling from his ceiling, and missing them repeatedly, when he could have just picked one up from the floor. Yeah, I'm anal like that.Overall, a surprisingly competent direction from Paul Weitz with his first fantasy attempt at such a big scale. But the story tried to do too much. I read that this was adapted from three books. That must be where the mistake lied.