Daybreakers (2009)

Daybreakers (2009)

Written and Directed by The Spierig Brothers

            Daybreakers is the movie that Twilight wishes it was.  Well, that’s not entirely true. Let the Right One In is the movie that Twilight wishes it was, but I’ll save that for another review.  Daybreakers is about what would really happen to Edward if he wasn’t nibbling at Bella’s neck every chance he got.

            Daybreakers is set in 2019, and vampires have taken over the world.  They tried to make a deal with the remaining humans, but the humans said no, and thus, they were hunted.  Actually, they were farmed, except for the ones who went into hiding.  Ethan Hawke plays Edward Dalton, a vampire hematologist (that’s a blood doctor) in charge of making a blood substitute, as the human supply is beginning to run low.  As expected, he hate his job, because he “feels bad” for the humans.  Sam Neill (Jurassic Park in the heezy!) plays Charles Bromley, the head of some corporation that controls the world’s blood supply.  Naturally, he is the film’s villian. On the other side of the fence, Claudia Karvan (Who I’ve never heard of.  Rightfully so, as IMDB tells me that she’s never been in anything that I’ve seen, which is a symptom of one of my main problems with this flick.) plays the female leader of the human resistance.  Willem Dafoe plays her friend, and he is the most memorable part of the flick.  Ethan Hawke soon leaves the corporate world for the chance to make a cure for vampirism with Dafoe and Nipples McGee, er Claudia Karvan.

            There was a lot that was simply just mediocre about this flick.  The acting was eh.  The story was lackluster.  But there was some good, so we’ll start with that.  The FX were great.  It appears that the production lacked a budget, and what budget it did have clearly went to making shit look cool, and it worked for the most part.  The bad vampires looked awesome, especially that one that attacked Ethan Hawke and his “Out-in-the-military” brother in Hawke’s apartment/condo/awesome freaking home.  We didn’t really see any transformations, but Michael Bay didn’t direct this, so that was fine.  Also awesome, as usual and as mentioned above, was Willem Dafoe.  I’ve known of the superb greatness of Dafoe for many years now, and most people probably recognize him from Spiderman, but if you haven’t seen Boondock Saints, then you’re missing out big-time.  He was on the ball here, delivering one-liner after one-liner, and he kicked some ass to boot, unlike his much younger co-star Ethan Hawke.  I’m not saying Ethan Hawke was bad, because I like the Hawke, and he truly wasn’t bad here.  He made us care for him, and that was his job, so I’d say he was good.  But he wasn’t the action star that he should have been.  Sam Neill chewed up scenery like he was a fat kid in the Entenmann’ store.  It makes me wonder why he hasn’t been doing more recently.  I don’t think I’ve seen him since the disaster that was Jurassic Park 3.  Another great thing about this flick was the use of vampire mythology.  No sparkling, metrosexual, brooding, vampires here.  Only badassery all around.  The gore was there, and I had a blast with it.  People exploded, heads were removed, eyes were gouged out, and it was all great.  I also loved that awesome car chase with the cars with blacked out windows.  Really cool.

            Now, on to the bad.  The story was ok, at best.  Everybody was a cliché.  Willem Dafoe was a former vampire, turned human, set out to destroy the vampires.  Ethan Hawke was a vampire hematologist that DIDN’T DRINK HUMAN BLOOD.  His brother was an arrogant, pushy, military type.  The lead chick had had something happen to her family.  Sam Neill’s rebellious daughter (played particularly well by the lovely Isabel Lucas, who you saw as the Decepticon in disguise this summer in Transformers 2: The Worst Movie I’ve Ever Seen) didn’t want to be a vampire, and when she became one, she caused trouble.  All I’m saying is, the characters could have and should have been a little more fleshed out (no pun intended).  Also, the whole middle of the flick seemed to be missing an action sequence, as I kind of zoned out during it.  This is a by-product of having a very small budget, and this just means that the Brothers Spierig should have spent their money a little more wisely, which brings me to my next point – this movie should have gone straight to DVD, and the only reason it didn’t was the fact that Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe were in it.  Did you notice any other real stars here? Nope.  I think that they should have used a little more money and cast a known actress instead of Claudia Karvan.  The flick could have used a credible female lead instead of some unknown with zero acting abilities.

            Overall, I’d say Daybreakers was okay.  And the people I saw it with seemed to agree.  Mythology wise – it was great.  The idea was great as well.  The execution, on the other hand, was just ok.  If you already saw Avatar, then go see this.  If you haven’t, then there is at least one other movie out there that is much better than this.  It’s worth a rental at least, though.  I’ll give it a 6 out of 10.