Butler's Cinema Scene

“CIRQUE DU SOLEIL: WORLDS AWAY” My rating: B- (Opening wide on Dec. 21)

91 minutes | No MPAA rating

“Worlds Away” is Cirque du Soleil’s version of a Greatest Hits album.

This 3-D production takes signature moments from a handful of current Cirque du Soleil stage extravaganzas and links them together with the flimsiest of “plots.”

The results are not unpleasant;  at the very least the film does a fine job of highlighting the high and low points of the Cirque style.

Written and directed by Andrew Adamson, whose resume includes two of the animated “Shrek” films and two of the live-action “Narnia” entries, “Worlds Away” begins at night on the midway of a traveling circus. An unspeaking young woman (Erica Linz) wanders among the side show oddities and grotesque clowns, soaking it all up with an odd smile.

Don’t expect any county fair charm from this big top assembly. We’re talking a three-way mating of “Something Wicked This Way Comes,” Todd Browning’s “Freaks” and the Jim Rose Circus. It’s all rather creepy, the sort of stuff to leave impressionable kids with nightmares.

Anyway, the girl finds herself drawn to a handsome aerialist (Igor Zaripov). When he falls from the trapeze and is sucked into a sawdust vortex that forms below, the girl dives in after him.

Befriended by silent but colorfully costumed guides, she wanders through an eerie alien landscape populated with moments from Cirque shows like “O” (the Las Vegas water extravaganza), “Mystere” and “Love” (the Beatles revue).

Eventually she finds her aerialist and true love triumphs.

I responded to this film the way I have responded to many of the Cirque shows I’ve seen. First, I was flabbergasted by the strength, balance, flexibility and grace of the circus performers, who have been gathered from around the world.

Equally impressive is the fantastic stagecraft of Cirque’s designers, who are able to create swirling oceans of real water, stage massive kung fu battles on a gigantic vertical wall (it’s like something out of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” times twenty), send humans aloft on a sort of gigantic bamboo bird or create a world of trampolines on which acrobats costumed as super-heroes zip about like ricocheting bullets.  

At the same time I’m left cold (or, more accurately, clammy) by the skin-crawling European clowns who are all over these productions. It’s like attending a John Wayne Gacy convention.

And I often feel that the creators of these shows are so determined to turn circus acts into high art that their productions flirt with pretentiousness.  There’s an off-putting aura of self-importance hovering over the proceedings.

Still, for those who have never seen a Cirque du Soleil production, “Worlds Away” provides a worthy introduction. And if you’re a hard-core fan already, you’ll need no encouragement.

| Robert W. Butler