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The script by Weitz and screenwriter Brian Helgeland (A Knight's Tale, Mystic River) seems like an attempt to distill elements not only of the first three books, but the first two trilogies in the series. The idea, I guess, would be to make the entire series into a single trilogy of movies. With the film's opening week well behind it, it's not hard to figure out the fate of this idea. And seeing as how it's a really good chance that this film isn't going to break even at the box office, it's not hard to figure out what the book had that the film lacked beyond the delicious little bits of moral ambiguity that makes it of passing interest to older readers.

The appeal of the books rests in a very episodic plot that sees the title character moving slowly towards the vampire world. In the film, we see a vaguely interested Massoglia and best friend Steve (Josh Hutcherson) finding a flyer for a freak show and promptly attending it without any reservations. The freak show itself is quite interesting, as are the freaks. Weitz plays brilliantly to his strengths with interpersonal drama and we see a group of very real, very interesting people that have physical things separating them from the rest of the world. The human element of the freak show doesn't have the kind of wildly fantastic appeal that we find in other contemporary cinematic depictions, or the delicate balance we see in Tim Burton's Big Fish. Still, it IS a lot of fun to see Salma Hayek as a precognitive bearded woman, Jane Krakowski as a woman with limitlessly regenerating limbs and so on. Weitz makes it all seem so practical without even the slightest hint of fantasy, which is successful as a film element, but not terribly successful as an adaptation of the book.

The story itself quickly sweeps through various story elements. John C. Reilly makes for an interesting Larden Crepsley and he makes for a pretty interesting dark hero, but we never really see his personality fully explored in a film that tries to throw too many elements into the mix without much depth. The film ends up looking terribly flat onscreen. The one place where it excels beyond the book is in the CGI artists' portrayal of Crepsely's spider Madame Octa. She's got plenty of personality here and actually comes across with much more charm than her depiction in the book. She races down a high school hallway tugging fruitlessly at windows in an attempt to escape and for a brief moment we feel something's been added to the story. Octa's brief appearances in the film isn't really worth the ticket price, though...even on matinee.

The Verdict

While the series of books is far from flawless, even as a series of books for grade school kids on their way to junior high school, it's not without its charm and there's a definite appeal to the storyline. The film does have its moments and makes certain elements of the book come alive on the screen, but it consistently fails to make much of an impression beyond those details. And without some underlying bit of novelty to make the film original, it lacks the spark of creativity that would significantly separate it from a host of other vampire movies that have been released in the long history of horror cinema.

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