Country: Australia / USA
Genre: Action / Drama / Horror / Sci-Fi / Thriller
Direction: Michael Spierig
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Michael Dorman, Claudia Karvan, Sam Neill, Isabel Lucas, Vince Colosimo, Paul Sonkkila
In the year 2019, a plague has transformed most every human into vampires. Faced with a dwindling blood supply, the fractured dominant race plots their survival; meanwhile, a researcher works with a covert band of vamps on a way to save humankind.
Download Daybreakers (2009)
Movie Review:
Going to the movies is like opening presents on Christmas morning. Generally, unless your family is extra sneaky about the whole surprise thing, you have some idea of what you're going to get. At the very least you know what you'd like to get. We watch trailers and keep track of stars and directors so that the astute moviegoer has an idea of what he or she is about to see before the movie begins. Going to see Daybreakers is like opening a present from your grandmother and getting pants. They're decent pants and they fit you alright, but for some reason that you can't imagine, they have no pockets in them. Daybreakers is a decent film. Certainly no one goes into a science fiction vampire movie expecting a masterpiece, but for some reason that you can't imagine, this movie has no ending.
Set in the year 2017, Daybreakers depicts a society in which almost the entirety of Earth's population are vampires. The human race, and consequently the blood supply, are dying out. Without blood, all the vampires on the planet will starve, becoming twisted deranged creatures called "subsiders." With the last of the blood supply gone in less than a month, a vampire hematologist, Ed Dalton (Ethan Hawke), joins a small group of rogue humans who claim to have a cure to vampirism.
There are a lot of moments in Daybreakers that verge on hokey. Willem Dafoe's character, nicknamed Elvis, has a trunk full of one-liners that are just ridiculous enough to be funny, even through his faltering southern accent. But major revelatory moments are cheapened by trite responses and uninspired dialogue.
Visually the filmmakers seem to have an inflated sense of themselves. There are moments and images that are clearly meant to be epic and stunning – a flaming phoenix/man as the human is reborn from the vampiric ashes, or subsiders being dragged by chains into the sunlight as they smolder into heaps – that fall just short of impressive.
Certainly Daybreakers has its merits. As the film hits its apex the violence and gore reach critical mass in an impressive display of "this will never be syndicated for reruns on network TV." Unfortunately, directly afterward comes the aforementioned horribly disappointing conclusion of the film.
Daybreakers isn't terrible. It just isn't much good either. But maybe not terrible is enough. Maybe in the dead of winter there's not much else to do. And maybe it's laundry day and pants with no pockets are better than no pants at all.
Set in the year 2017, Daybreakers depicts a society in which almost the entirety of Earth's population are vampires. The human race, and consequently the blood supply, are dying out. Without blood, all the vampires on the planet will starve, becoming twisted deranged creatures called "subsiders." With the last of the blood supply gone in less than a month, a vampire hematologist, Ed Dalton (Ethan Hawke), joins a small group of rogue humans who claim to have a cure to vampirism.
There are a lot of moments in Daybreakers that verge on hokey. Willem Dafoe's character, nicknamed Elvis, has a trunk full of one-liners that are just ridiculous enough to be funny, even through his faltering southern accent. But major revelatory moments are cheapened by trite responses and uninspired dialogue.
Visually the filmmakers seem to have an inflated sense of themselves. There are moments and images that are clearly meant to be epic and stunning – a flaming phoenix/man as the human is reborn from the vampiric ashes, or subsiders being dragged by chains into the sunlight as they smolder into heaps – that fall just short of impressive.
Certainly Daybreakers has its merits. As the film hits its apex the violence and gore reach critical mass in an impressive display of "this will never be syndicated for reruns on network TV." Unfortunately, directly afterward comes the aforementioned horribly disappointing conclusion of the film.
Daybreakers isn't terrible. It just isn't much good either. But maybe not terrible is enough. Maybe in the dead of winter there's not much else to do. And maybe it's laundry day and pants with no pockets are better than no pants at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment