October 29, 2009 Movies » Movie Reviews

Cirque du Freak a relentless turkey 

Since when do good grades make you the hero and being abused makes you a villain?

by Hillary Titley

How do relentless turkeys like Cirque du Freak attract the kind of talent like director/writer Paul Weitz, co-writer Brian Helgeland, actors John C. Reilly, Willem Dafoe, Ken Wantanabe and Salma Hayek? Who got this ball rolling and where can I address my nasty letters? This year has had its share of kiddie movies that play like a kind of bouncy castle for the brain (G-Force, Shorts), but never any as shockingly unpleasant as Freak. Based on the young adult novel series, The Saga of Darren Shan, the movie, where some snot-nosed teen becomes a circus-freak vampire, has an outdated good-kid/bad-kid dichotomy. It makes me down-right queasy that a movie would simply explain that good grades make you the hero, while an abusive home life makes you unequivocally evil.

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