Movie Review: Daybreakers

Daybreakers takes vampires and makes them feel real. If they existed, this is how it would play out. One bloodsucker bites a human, that human turns and goes after another until the entire population is afraid of the sun. It’s a fascinating premise and a similarly enthralling world is built around it. Blood harvesting! What a sensible idea. The sight of Bromley Marks’ massive blood bank with hundreds of humans dangling from the extractors is as moving on screen as it is in the film’s posters.

A company of such immensity and immorality needs a heartless monster to run it and damn does Sam Neill give us one. Neill is Charles Bromley and he’s pretty creepy. Equally immersed in his character, naturally, is Willem Dafoe. Not only does he provide the majority of the film’s comic relief, but during Daybreakers’ slower segments, he’s there to drag it along and keep the audience connected. Also noteworthy is Michael Dorman as Ed’s brother Frankie and the more hardy of the two. He’s an absolute natural on screen and has a way of making you hate him for his foolhardiness, yet wonder if you’d make the same choices in his situation.

The film’s shining star has yet to be addressed because, well, Ethan Hawke is rather lackluster in this role. But don’t blame Hawke, instead blame writers/directors Michael and Peter Spierig for creating such a dull character. He’s there to bring the whole story together but nothing more. The same goes for his female counterpart. Audrey is just there. There’s no real meat to the character. Luckily Isabel Lucas brings some life to the film’s female roster. She has only a few scenes, but manages to make them memorable.

The film slows significantly at the midpoint, but everything else is such a blast it blends in almost unnoticeably. Even some laughable special effects are strangely appropriate. The power of the Spierig Brothers is mighty and it’ll be impossible to sit down for this effort without becoming completely absorbed in their futuristic world of vampire clichés and novelties. The cinematography is on point, the screenplay creatively developed and then, to the horror fan’s delight, both are doused with enough blood to make a wildly refreshing vampire movie.

Release Date: January 8, 2010

Genre: Horror

MPAA Rating: R

Studio: Lionsgate

Director: Peter Spierig, Michael Spierig

Screenwriter: Peter Spierig, Michael Spierig

Trailer

Movie Website: Daybreakersmovie.com

Actors/Actresses: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Claudia Karvan, Michael Dorman, Vince Colosimo, Isabel Lucas, Sam Neill

Our Verdict:

While Daybreakers boasts several truly freaky when not surreal interludes involving terrifying vampires and squeamish meat market experimentation on doomed humans, the proceedings are fatally bogged down by too many convoluted cautionary plot points and famished feeding frenzy detours.