DAYBREAKERS

Rating: Rated R

Minutes: 98

Directed by : Michael Spiereg

                   Peter Spiereg

A Fury of the Film Fan Review   

             There has been a surge of vampire based media lately but it’s all been based on romance. HBO gave us the hit series True Blood, Foreign films like Let the Right one in and Chan-wook Park’s Thirst have given us a mature take on the genre while the massively successful tweentarded Twilight series captured the hearts of millions with the promise of celibatic eternal love.  Some of these are bearable but if you’re like me you are wondering where all the kick ass apocalyptic vampire slaying movies are. The kind of chest hair growing ball dropping film that features nothing more than a bunch of suck heads catching wood right through their stinkin’ unholy hearts. Damn I miss those.           

It looks like the Spierig brothers felt the same way. They have written and directed a real vampire movie with Daybreakers. In the spirit of alternate universe storylines like District 9 and Children of Men, Daybreakers takes place in a world that is already taken over by Vampires. A major outbreak has transformed almost every single human being into a vampire. With the promise of immortality everyone thinks this new life is the best thing since sliced bread and form a new society. Years pass and in 2019 the vampires have used up their resources (you thought Avatar was preachy, Ha!) and face a dwindling blood supply that threatens their own existence. It’s discovered that if a vampire fails to drink blood they turn into uncontrollable violent bat-like creatures. Ethan Hawke plays Edward Dalton, a Hematologist who hates being a Vampire. So much so that he refuses to drink human blood. He’s against the hunting down of humans and works tirelessly to find a blood substitute that will ensure his race’s survival and eliminate the need for human blood.   

   Opposing him is his boss Charles Bromley played by Sam Neil.  You might know Sam Neil as Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in The Tudors but if you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing the best show about messed up English Royalty then you would remember him from Jurassic Park. Sam Neil plays the perfect douche bag CEO. He personifies the greed and corruption behind the biggest corporations. While backing Edward Dalton to find a blood substitute he continues to hunt down the remaining humans for those “willing to pay more for the real thing”   

                                       Only Ethan Hawke can save the Human AND Vampire race

    The movie does a fantastic job of immediately showing you what this world would look like. The attention is in the details as we see how these blood suckers would still operate in a functioning society that is now immortal. For example we see how Chevrolet plays an important role in providing the safest transportation during the day for Vampires. With such blatant product placement I’m surprised they didn’t have Starbucks around providing the masses with overpriced blood laced Venti sized coffee.  While it does a good job of showing you what this new world would look like it fails to show what it would feel like. The scope of the film starts off big but its ambition eventually dwindles to nothing more than a centralized story that we have already seen more than a few times. If the real hook to the film here is this alternate world where are the politics? Is there a religion now that most of humanity has opted to be turned with the promise of immortality? The film misses the chance to have some fun with the premise.  

    Because the movie takes no chances to explore these topics we are left with what I feel is a very dull film. It’s a shame the movie shares the same pulse as the vampires that star in it because Daybreakers has some great acting talent that is severely underdeveloped. For example, Willem Dafoe plays the wise cracking foul mouthed survivor that steals the scenery so well you wish an entire film was based on him alone.  Every character is given tiny details explaining why they do what they do but since these characters are so good and the actors bring so much depth to them the movie begs to give these characters far more attention than they do.    

    The films tone is off and the little action Daybreakers does provide becomes repetitive as the film is riddled with car chase after car chase. The movie doesn’t provide nearly the amount of exciting action the trailer promises.  This would all be fine had the movie focused on the story of the human survivors or this new vampire society but since it does neither it fails to resonate anything truly inspiring. This could have been a fresh new take on a survival horror story instead the Spierig brothers rely on those loud “BOO” moments to incite any reaction from the crowd, which gets old really fast.  There is a lot of missed opportunity here. Daybreakers feels like it should be a story told with more films in mind.  Nevertheless the film doesn’t insult you it just ignores what many will be wondering throughout the film.  If you absolutely HAVE to see another Vampire movie right now then go right ahead and see Day Breakers, me, I would rather wait for the DVD. 

** 1/2 stars (Bronze Fury Award)

OVERALL:

The film is neither that good nor that bad. It’s a movie that shows lots of promise and delivers an original story that will satisfy many who are sick and tired of romantic vampire stories. Missed opportunities aside, Daybreakers is a solid entry that kicks off the New Year right but might disappoint many looking for a deeper look into this vampire world.