Movie Reviews: Amelia, Astro Boy, Saw VI

CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE VAMPIRE’S ASSISTANT The vampire trend continues, but the only authentic bloodsuckers in Cirque du Freak are its producers and studio execs. Drawn from the young-adult books by U.K. author Darren Shan, Cirque du Freak has F/X creatures, teen angst and romance, mysterious back stories and a brewing war between beasties. On paper, it’s a perfect formula — Twilight meets X-Men meets Harry Potter — but the onscreen result is not the sum of its parts. Cirque du Freak opens in sunny suburbia, where bland high-schooler Darren (Chris Massoglia) hangs out with his ne’er-do-well buddy, Steve (Josh Hutcherson). Something wacky this way comes: The titular freak show is in town for one night only. The two sneak out to meet the freaks, including sardonic spider-tamer Larten (John C. Reilly), whom Steve recognizes from one of his occult books to be a 220-year-old vampire. Soon enough, Darren becomes a half-vampire (?) whose new love interest — a cute girl too insecure to show her monkey tail — teaches him that “being human is not about what you are, but who you are”; Darren battles the now-evil Steve, who is also now-jealous because Darren got to become a vampire; and Willem Dafoe shows up looking like Vincent Price resurrected. Some of you are thinking: That sounds rad! And Cirque might have worked if it were either straight dark comedy or actually dark like its source material. Directed by Paul Weitz (American Pie), the movie suffers from the same tonal schizophrenia of that other recent goth wannabe, Jennifer’s Body: Is it meant to be scary, or funny? Oops, it’s neither. (Citywide) (Aaron Hillis)

HANNAH FREE In perhaps her biggest role since her work on the iconic 1980s cop show Cagney & Lacey, Sharon Gless stars as Hannah, an elderly woman denied permission to visit her dying lover, Rachel (Maureen Gallagher), even though they’re residents of the same nursing home. Hannah and Rachel have been in love for 40 years, even during Rachel’s marriage to a man. In flashbacks, Hannah recalls their life together, which, it must be said, isn’t terribly interesting. Adapting her play, screenwriter Claudia Allen presents each woman in the broadest of strokes — Hannah is a free spirit obsessed with traveling the world, while Rachel is homespun and responsible. Rather quickly, the flashbacks become repetitively lovey-dovey; only near the end does Rachel, in a fine moment for Gallagher, let loose, giving Hannah a piece of her mind and the film itself a much needed blast of energy. As directed by Wendy Jo Carlton, Hannah Free is as predictable as a Hallmark Channel movie, although there’s undeniable pleasure to be had from watching Gless mumble and grumble and generally chew the scenery. Cagney lives, and she’s as cranky as ever. (Music Hall) (Chuck Wilson)

THE JANKY PROMOTERS & FROM MEXICO WITH LOVE Two films opened, unheralded, last week at the Beverly Center—and may well be gone by the time you read this. That is what’s called “a contractual release.” It used to be that when a studio changed heads, only those unlucky pictures that were produced under the previous regime would be given such a grim reaping: a bare-bones ad campaign or none at all; a debut in some dimly lit ’plex, sandwiched between extinct mammoths that once enjoyed the dignity of a fairly promoted first weekend. “Straight to video” used to mean forgettable martial arts stars, or formerly viable actual stars whose careers were in turnaround, or still-sexy ex–flavors of the month condemned to premature afterlives. These days, however, such bitter fates also greet filmmakers whose audiences are firmly established, and wildcatter indies whose efforts, in fairer times, would at least be given a visible sendoff. Written by and starring Ice Cube and released (nominally) by The Weinstein Company, The Janky Promoters is farce in the unpretentious vein of Barbershop,Barbershop2,Friday,Next Fridayand Friday After Next. That is also its problem, in hard Darwinian terms. Cube and Mike Epps play a pair of concert-promoting hustlers who, in a single 24-hour period, are repeatedly busted in their shameless lies by other shameless liars. Despite the music of Young Jeezy (playing himself) and the smoldering menace embodied by a local druglord (an outstanding Darris Love), everything builds to a fairly careless climax. In the theater across the hall, FromMexicoWith Lovespins a more tightly constructed yarn from its equally familiar elements, imposing the feel-good arc of Rocky (underdog-boxer-with-heart goes the distance against a privileged opponent) upon the gritty, well-drawn texture of life among migrant workers along the border near Laredo, Texas. Director Jimmy Nickerson was previously a distinguished stunt and fight coordinator (Rocky,Gladiator, Fight Club); the boxing here feels enjoyably lived in. Gummy bits of backstory may cling like Post-its to the undersides of the dialogue—we never lose sight that our hero (Kuno Becker, excellent) is the son of a dead boxer who could have been one of the greats, etc.—but the screenplay (by Glen Hartford and Nicholas Siapkaris) otherwise promotes reliable tension and lumps in one’s throat. As villainous father to the spoiled gringo boxer, Stephen Lang might easily have been a mere cipher of ill will but instead gives us a man who has painted himself into a corner, psychologically—and so is more tormented, and dangerous. Are movies as we know them dying, that two such generic canaries as these should keel over in the cultural mineshaft? Both would pull you in if you caught them while channel-surfing—The Janky Promoters has good laughs (there’s a welcome intrusion by the crew of the reality show Cheaters at one adulterous impasse); and whatever its surface predictabilities, From Mexico With Love has the virtue of coaxing you to care about its people. Trouble is, neither picture does anything new. Whatever large paradigm shift is transforming motion pictures, here are two hapless proofs that, economy be damned, lack of originality is the silent killer. (F.X. Feeney)