Daybreakers

Daybreakers

Vampire movies have certainly come a long way since Bela Lugosi.

While the likes of Cirque du Freak and the Twilight series have mined the lighter, fluffier side of the undead (who knew that even existed?), Daybreakers draws heavily upon the Blade franchise and The Matrix's sleek sci-fi for its thrills. There are no brooding teens or lovestruck bloodsuckers here - just fanged monstrosities ripping their victims' heads off and chowing down on their necks.

Having said this, though, there's still a curious humanization of the undead at work, reducing them from evil, bloodsucking fiends to charming, suit-wearing bloodsucking fiends. Any resemblance to Wall Street's finest is purely intentional.

The year is 2019, and a vampiric disease has given the majority of the world's population fangs and a thirst for human blood. This is no longer a human planet: the vampires now own every major company, resource and organization. Mankind as we know it is slowly dying out, being hunted and captured by the vampires to be drained into a huge blood-bank.

And it's here that vampirekind encounters a problem. As the number of surviving humans dwindles, so food supplies begin to run short. Without human blood to feed on the vamps gradually degenerate into mindless animals that bring to mind Max Schreck's 1922 Dracula-wannabe Count Orlok. The vampire society looks as if it's beginning to fall apart at the seams.

Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) is in charge of an effort to synthesize human blood by pharmaceutical company Bromley Marks, but his research is getting nowhere fast. Dalton himself is a human sympathizer, and he hopes that his synthetic substitute might save mankind from extinction - but even if he succeeds, his boss (Sam Neill) is still keen on milking the market for the genuine article.

It's only when Dalton meets human refugees Audrey Bennett and Lionel 'Elvis' Cormac (vamp movie favorite Willem Dafoe) that he realizes there may be a third option. Cormac claims to have been changed back from vampire to human, and his body may hold the secret to a cure for the world's bloodsucking plague.

The idea behind Daybreakers is intriguing enough, and there's certainly an impressive cast, but unfortunately the script quickly degenerates into a series of low-budget action sequences that hardly do the concept justice. When we could have been seeing Dalton struggle with his dual loyalties, we're given a bullet-riddled car chase instead.

Ultimately it turns what might have been a smart I Am Legend-style take on the vampire story into a regular fightfest, and while it's still a notch above most low-budget horror flicks, it never makes the most of its intriguing sci-fi angle. Maybe they should have had a little more faith in their concept and delivered an intelligent, philosophical tale instead.

Still, we do get to see Sam Neill being ripped limb-from-limb. And that can only be a good thing.

3/5

Daybreakers - **

Review:  My sister told me not to see this movie and that it was very lame.  However, the idea and the presentation intrigued me and I suppose that is why they pay people money to make good trailers cause this movie was not very good.

The year is 2019 and the world is now overrun with vampires to the point that true human blood is at a shortage and humans have been driven to hiding as they are now hunted to be harvested.  This whole premise is a very intriguing idea, however, terrible execution is what makes this movie suffer.

The movie follows Ethan Hawke's character who works for a company run by Sam Neil that harvest's humans and their blood.  As this company knows about the blood shortage, they are attempting to find a blood substitute so they can ensure the vampire population flourishes and everyone doesn't turn into giant human-bat hybrids. 

Eventually Ethan Hawke's character hooks up with a human renegade group and they believe to have found a cure for vampire-ism and the question is can they reach the people in charge in time and would they even want a cure if they could get one? 

The movie is flat and I have little tolerance for movies in which the actors don't appear to care about their characters.  I expect better out of Hawke, Willem Dafoe, and Sam Neil.  This movie is just unfortunate all the way around.  There is also little action and the majority of the action is stupid.  However, the special effects were actually pretty good.  That's about the only positive thing I can say.  The rating gets bumped about half a star or so just cause I like the actors in it and the storyline had more promise than it showed, but ultimately, not worth your time.

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Daybreakers

Daybreakers - Written and directed by the Spierig Brothers, starring Ethan Hawke, Willem Defoe, and Sam Niell - Rated R

 I checked out Daybreakers a couple weeks ago and I decided that it was not worthy of a full review since it's already disappeared from theaters. Let me just say that this isn't a bad film. It's a fun B-movie that's certainly worth a rental. Hawke kind of sleepwalks through it all, but Defoe gets to ham it up and have fun with all his ridiculous similes ("Living in a world where vampires are the dominant species is about as safe as bare backing a $5 whore.") and Sam Niell gets to evil it up in his few scenes. Aside from that, the all vampire world created for the film is pretty convincing, even if it turns out that vampires are terrible at planning ahead. How did they not have better plan for keeping a blood supply? They just drain humans dry. If they take their time they can breed humans and also, they could take just a little bit of blood at a time and let the humans replenish it, then repeat the process. Whatever, right? As long as a vampire or two blows up into a fountain of blood, who cares?

Eric Harris - www.canneltoncritic.com

Daybreakers

Me and my sister went to see the movie Daybreakers, and I have to say that this movie is by far the BEST vampire movie of all time. Eat that Twilight! After Twilight came out it ruined vampires for me. It took one of the greatest horror monsters ever created and turned it into a wussy little emo boy(s) who sparkle in the sunlight.

Give me a break, I've liked vampires way before Twilight ever came out and way before liking vampires was cool, but after that I was ashamed to admit that I like vampires cause of it. Daybreakers was ten times better then I thought it would be and it's about vampires how they should be. I'll tell you a little bit about the movie so I dont ruin it cause I really think everyone should go see it, it's just that good. The movie is based in the year 2019 where a virus hit America and turned everyone into vampires and there's hardly any humans left.

The only way they can survive is of course drinking human blood, but how can they when there's hardly any humans left you ask?! Well a blood doctor who is played by Ethan Hawke and who is the main guy and vampire tries to come up with a subsitute for human blood. I know I've peaked your curiousity so go see it cause this is how REAL vampires are and how they were meant to be, not sparkling in the sunlight and falling for the clumsy albino girl.
I give this movie 5 out of 5 Skulls. It was pretty damn awesome.

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Recommendations: The Amityville Horror, Children of the Corn , My Bloody Valentine

JennyB<br />
http://memoirsofascreamqueen.blogspot.com/

Daybreakers

I give the film: 2.5/5

For a movie with a solid trailer, it is too bad that an A-grade looking premise (and actors) can become B-grade because of the ridiculous narrative. Daybreakers is the kind of film whereby audiences are kept wound in suspense at the beginning (trust me, it is scary) until the plot twists come in and it completely drops all logic - and the audience's interest - along the way.

SYNOPSIS:

In a future where most humans have mutated into vampires, an organisation who harvests human blood for the population's consumption is facing a severe shortage. Vampire Edward (Ethan Hawke) - don't ask me about the name-coincidence - is a scientist who researches on an alternative blood source so that the endangered species (us, humans) will not face extinction. Obviously, Edward sides with mankind, and when he stumbles upon a group of them, he helps them escape the vampires, while at the same time discovering a 'cure' for transforming back into a human-being.

PLUS-POINTS:

I shall not provide any spoilers here, but obviously, there is a lotgoing on. The movie starts off strongly and rather terrifyingly. Do prepare to grab onto something - or someone - if you don't wish to jump out of your seat. The first 'cure' for vampire-ism will intrigue you, but subsequently when the second 'cure' is discovered...

FLAWS:

...everything falls apart. The film degrades into a bloody rampage of biting and blood-squirting, and before you know it, a bat darts across the screen (another unnecessary scare) and the credits roll, and you're like, "huh?"

FINAL SAY: 

The movie does address some powerful themes on humanity with a few strong sequences thrown into the mix, but even the presence of Ethan Hawke, Sam Neil and Willem Dafoe can't stop this from degenerating into a lump of bloody mess.

Wilson Ng - http://wilsoniscurious.blogspot.com/

Last updated: 2010-03-13 23:50:03 by wilsoniscurious

Review: “Daybreakers” is awesome

* * * out of four stars

Fans of true vampire literature (not that “Twilight” crap) will not be disappointed with “Daybreakers,” a new vampire flick from the Spierig Brothers (“Undead”).

Set in the year 2019, when humans have almost completely been hunted and harvested by vampires, “Daybreakers” sets an appropriately dark and grim stage, with vampires over-populating the earth and not enough blood to sustain them.

Ethan Hawke (“Lord of War,” “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead”) plays Edward Dalton, a vampire scientist trying to find a formula for a legitimate blood substitute. Unlike most vampires, Dalton refuses to drink human blood, and instead settles for harvested animal blood. When he is discovered by a group of humans, he is asked to work with them on something more valuable… a cure.

There is a lot of poverty and starvation in “Daybreakers.” In fact, it’s not even treated as a subplot. It’s given equal time to the rest of the story. Sometimes it’s hard to watch, as it draws frightening parallels to society today, not literally, but definitely symbolically.

“Daybreakers” is awesome. It’s the most satisfying vampire epic since “30 Days of Night,” and even belongs in the same ranks as “Blade” and “Interview With the Vampire.” It has a style both flashy and subdued. This is not a movie that thrives on effects. In fact, you won’t even notice them.

Ethan Hawke is good as always. I also thought Sam Neill (“Jurassic Park”) did a fine job as the film’s villainous corporate head. The show-stealer for this one was (no surprise), Willem Dafoe, who received an Oscar nomination for his vampiric role in “Shadow of the Vampire.” He’s good in this one too.

Horror fans will have a blast with this one. Plenty of gore, stakes through the heart, and bloodsucking to please any fan of the genre. The story is very good, and while the film occasionally gets predictable, that doesn’t stop it from being one of the better horror films in a long time.

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Daybreakers

Daybreakers
Starring:
Ethan Hawke, Sam Neil, Audry Benett, Michael Dorman and Willem Dafoe
Director: Michael and Peter Spierig
Genre: Drama, Action, Science Fiction, Horror
Rated: R

With the earth’s population being primarily Vampires and the human population, which is used for a blood supply quickly running out. Edward Dalton a Vampire/Hematologist (Ethan Hawke) looking for a blood substitute, Teams up with a band of humans who have the cure for vampirism.

The first misconception I had about Daybreakers from the Trailer was that this was a horror film with vampires being the dominant species and the focus being hunting down the last surviving humans, while this is part of the story the film is much smaller in scope with only one major scene involving hunting humans. There are multiple cheap pops to startle you primarily of the bat screeching kind. The majority of the story is Edward trying to find a cure for vampirism and his relationship with his brother Frankie(Michael Dorman) who is in the military. There is a subplot involving blood deprived vampires who mutate into giant batlike creatures who inhabit the tunnels under the city. Ultimately the film is about corporate greed and what is the motivation to provide a cure when the money is in the medicine.

Daybreakers is good it’s just not what I was expecting. There is some quality gore particularly in one of the best scenes in the film where the initial blood substitute is being tested. However too much of the film feels like its major purpose is to fill you in on this world i.e. Tunnels under the city cars that are sunlight proofed. So the real story can be told in the sequel.

I personally would have liked more interaction with the mutated subteranian vampires and less looking at blood slides and testing.

More Sci Fi than Horror Daybreakers is entertaining just not in the way the trailer leads you to believe.

Daybreakers

my day was broken when i watched this film. it was broken into two halves: the half where i was happy, and the half where i wished i hadn't watched this film. i know vampires are in these days; i know they're like sex, to women. they see these denizens of the night and their pointy teeth and think "i'd love those teeth. in my mouth." well this film didn't have that type of vampire. it had the type that aren't attractive, the type that turn into disgusting half-human bats. nobody wants that in their mouth.

the whole affair was kind of my fault. i went into this film after someone claimed they loved it, that they had seen it more than once. my expectations were high; like the day i was allowed to pet a rabbit. i looked forward to that day, for many months. when the fateful day came, the rabbit bit me and ran away. i didn't feel good after that either.

the gore was overused in daybreakers. i'm sure it was put there for comedic purposes, i was definitely laughing at it. but it was there to just be "there." the story was thin, predictable. it's like the writers had a premise, but they didn't know what to do with it. there was no definitive arch, just a bunch of stuff that happened. there wasn't even a discernible ending.

i give this movie a 2/7. in some of the scenes, there was an atmosphere created that i enjoyed. but that didn't make up for the other 80 minutes of awful.

http://suckfail.wordpress.com/2010/03/03/daybreakers/

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daybreakers

the best vampire movie i’ve seen this year!  of course it is only january 8.

no faggie sparkle in the sunlight vampires here.  nope, these monsters burst full into flame when they come in contact with sunlight.  and when they don’t drink human blood they turn into even worse monsters.  nasty bat looking creatures that get all crazy and stuff.

the premise is this, the vampire virus breaks out and everyone turns into a vampire except a few humans who decide to fight against it.  so the vamps round up the remaining humans and farm them for blood.  other than the obvious problem here, the vampires would at some point realize if they turned everyone human, they would eventually run out of food.  and run out of food is exactly what they do.

they are of course searching for a blood substitute to keep them all alive.  they should call up the folks over at true blood at hbo.

anyway, ethan hawke is a vampire hermatologist working on this blood substitute.  he’s a softy and has compassion for the humans he sees hung up and drained of blood as he walks to his office everyday at work.  he runs into some humans on the run and they recruit him to help develop a cure.  but of course the greedy rich vampire that runs everything really isn’t looking for a cure, just repeat customers.

blood and gore ensue.  and it does get bloody and gory.  and ya know, that’s alright.  that’s the way vampire flicks are supposed to be.  starring ethan hawke, willem defoe and sam neill.

this one ain’t blowing up the box office this weekend unless everyone gets snowed in and has already seen everything else.  it’s just kinda alright.  i mean, it’s got some cool sun bursting and wood staking in it but i’m not gonna rush out and buy it on dvd.  if i find it in the five dollar rack maybe…

Cal Reed

Movie Review: Daybreakers (2010)

Of all the vampire movies in recent years, Daybreakers has one of the most original and interesting premises.  2019.  The tables have turned and vampires are now in the majority.  Humans are hunted down and farmed for blood.  [Sorry, I couldn't think of a way to explain the premise without giving those parts away]

Anyway, it’s a great idea, and everything about Daybreakers points towards a classic.  From the dark, cold colour scheme to some of the coolest futuristic inventions (for the vampire folk), old school action and car chases, sickening blood and gore, frightening creatures and Willem Dafoe, Daybreakers should have been a classic.

But it’s not.

And no, it’s not Ethan Hawke’s fault!  I like Hawke and I think he’s a suitable lead for this film.  He’s got that brooding, intellectual demeanor with an ample dose of wimpiness – but with hero potential, of course.  So no, it’s not Hawke.  He’s fine.
So is female lead Claudia Karvan and her Aussie/Kiwi co-stars Sam Neill, Vince Colosimo and Isabel Lucas.

So perhaps the problem lies with the fact that Daybreakers is not very memorable.  None of the characters are particularly interesting or stand out.  Willem Dafoe is supposed to be that guy, but he doesn’t quite get there.  There’s no dialogue that audiences are likely to remember or recite.  And apart from an early encounter, there’s not a lot of scares, and while there is nothing wrong with the action, it is actually rather pedestrian in comparison to the top notch action thrillers.

Having said all that, I did like the film.  It was one of those “it’s pretty good, but could have been so much more” type movies.  It kept me interested and intrigued, with a couple of twists thrown in for good measure.  At just 98 minutes, it made me wish for once the film was at least 20 minutes longer.  Maybe it’s the relatively low budget (by today’s standards) of only $20 million and a restricted vision that held it back from being great.

Argh.

3.5 stars out of 5!

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PJM

Last updated: 2010-03-02 22:39:28 by pacejmiller

Daybreakers

Basic Premise:
It's 2019 and 99% of the population are vampires... starving vampires. The last 1% of humans are dwindling into extinction. Ed Norton, a vampire hematologist, needs to find a substitute for human blood, but the last remaining humans offer him a cure instead. But, will he be in time?


Review:
Based on the trailers, this movie could either be really good or really bad depending on the writing and the acting. Well, you want to know which it was?

SAVE. YOUR. MONEY!!!!

Great premise but the implementation wasn't that great. I guess this is supposed to be a horror (I'm the wrong person to ask since I'm completely desensitized to what movies call scary). There are plenty of unneeded "jump" moments (points in the movie where there are lulls and then suddenly something loud and seemingly scary pops up, startling the audience). There's also people being ripped apart with body parts and blood flying everywhere, so I guess that places this in the horror genre.

The ending ruined it for me. I thought they would do something clever and was disappointed when they didn't. There were so many great ways to end that movie. Ending it with a voice over that possibly hinted at a sequel, or intro to a TV series, wasn't one of them.

*sigh* So very disappointed. But, as a vampire movie, I had to go see it.

Recommendations: Star Trek (2009), Avatar, 300

D. Renee Bagby<br />
Building New Realms of Passion<br />
http://dreneebagby.com

Daybreakers

It would seem only natural, with the renewed interest in vampires and werewolves due to the recent success of the "Twilight" movies, that movie studios would try to tap into this reemerging genre. In contrast to the more romantic light that vampires have been shown in “The Vampire Diaries” or “New Moon,” "Daybreakers" returns to the darker elements of vampire lore in its quest to give the viewer a deeper movie-going experience. In this endeavor the movie falls flat on its face.

The year is 2020 and most of the world has been turned into vampires by a plague and the world exists as it once did with one major exception: everyone is now drinking blood. In the ten short years since the outbreak of the plague the world has nearly exhausted its supply of human blood. Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke, "Lord of War") is a hematologist working to create a synthetic blood supply so that humans no longer need to be harvested. Unlike just about every other vampire in the movie, he has pity for the way humans are sucked dry to feed society and resents being a vampire. In addition to his moody personal issues he doesn’t see eye to eye with his human-hunting brother Frankie (Michael Dorman, "Triangle") and resents the money and power-oriented focus of his boss, Charles Bromley (Sam Neil, "Event Horizon"). After an explosive failure of his latest blood supply, Ed has a chance encounter with a group of humans led by Audry Bennet (Claudia Karvan, "The Long Weekend"). After saving them from a roaming patrol they contact him with information about a possible cure for vampirism. He meets up with Lionel Cormac (William Defoe, "Antichrist"), a vampire turned human - the key to cure. They spend the rest of the movie running from the human-hunting army and trying to perfect the cure for the rest of society.

"Daybreakers" is a silly movie that tries to take itself seriously. Apparently the writers thought that the best way to contemplate what it meant to be human was to have Edward sulk for most of the movie. There is no chemistry between any of the characters and the eventual romance that develops between Edward and Audry feels so forced that it’s hard to watch. With the exception of Frankie, not a single character is developed beyond their stock archetypes. The movie is full of extraneous side stories. One of the more ridiculous aspects of the movie was that a vampire who goes without blood for too long turns into a winged beast that resembles something out of "Nosferatu." The problem with this is that the movie spends most of its time discussing the problems that these creatures are causing and then in the course of five minutes they are all rounded up and killed, amounting to one of the greatest wastes of time in the entire movie. Another useless story was Bromley’s daughter; he spends half the movie talking about how his daughter committed suicide then we find out she is alive but then is killed a few minutes later, contributing nothing to the story line. Sam Neil and William Defoe are underused and their characters have nothing to work with to bring any redeeming qualities to the acting. The special effects were laughable, amounting to nothing more than cheap CGI and buckets of blood. Another problem I had was how apparently the whole of humanity becomes vicious individuals who are perfectly fine with killing a lot of people because they need to drink blood. It just didn’t make much sense.

In short, the movie was a long list of wasted opportunities and underused talent. It never really caught my attention as it meandered through a story that paled against the setting of a world full of vampires. If you are looking for a good suspenseful movie that touches the deeper side of humanity I would suggest "28 Days Later."

Final Verdict: 1 ½ stars out of 4 or a 60%. Get this one online for free or from Netflix; otherwise you'll be angry you spent the money

Side note: with all the names in the world they had to choose Edward as their main vampire...

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Daybreakers: A bloody good flick

"Life's a bitch and then you don't die," says Ethan Hawke, vampire, physician and human-sympathizer in this scary, interesting and, yes, inspiring horror, sci-fi thriller.

It's a rare moment of levity in this noir film (Shall we say rouge considering all the gushing, geysering blood?), where humans are an endangered species and vampires rule. It's not looking good for the homo sapiens. And just think about what's happening to the food supply.

It does sound a tad hokey. But the Movie Slut promises that "Daybreakers" breaks through the silly screen fillers thanks to an imaginative plot, a meaningful message, and an excellent cast, including San Neill, the vampire villain, and Willem Dafoe, a turned vampire who's now human — sort of. 

The MS challenges you to witness the brilliant finale without drawing parallels to the absurdity of man's inhumanity to man in the real world.

"There is a cure. You can be turned. There is hope," Hawke says at the end of the movie.

If only.

See you at the movies, The Movie Slut

Super Marcey's Daybreakers Review

 

 

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Recommendations: Moon (Duncan Jones, 2009), Milk, Hurt Locker, The (Kathryn Bigelow, 2009)

Last updated: 2010-02-19 15:57:44 by SuperMarcey

Daybreakers should go back underground...

*no spoilers*
The vampires are back but with a new twist in the Spierig brothers film Daybreakers starring Ethan Hawke and William Dafoe. Rick, my esteemed college, already did a great job in his review from last week so I won’t go into too much details besides my pros and cons.

Pros
In a world filled with overly hormonal and emotionally immature vampires running around, it was actually nice to see the undead of the night get some genuine creepy respect. The fact that vampires have now taken over society and are living the ‘manic Mondays’ is a fun and interesting interpretation. They catatonicly go to work, wait for public transportation, and have rebellious teenagers. In one scene with a group of vampire teenagers, it would have been ironic if they were all reading a the latest romance novel about a vampire falling in forbidden love with a human! But I digress. The environment Daybreakers created was quite interesting. It was blend of the ordinary and the fantastic. The world reminded me of a remix of Matrix and Gattica (another favorite Hawke movie)- where it’s strangely familiar and totally foreign at the same time. The coffee shops serving blood instead of creamer was a nice touch. I especially liked the feral, beast-like mutants that were a result of vampires feeding off their own blood. They were pretty freaky and vampires becoming the victims is an interesting twist on things.The first half of this movie was great. I love bizzaro world tales and how a culture can be perverted and yet remain so familiar. Even if you are a blood thirsty predator, you still gotta pay bills and take care of your family. Oh, there are also a few jumpy scenes if you are into that kinda stuff.



Cons
Unfortunately Daybreakers went from undead to dead by the second half of the movie. It’s like the vampiric monsters I mentioned earlier, the movie fed off itself until it mutated and went crazy. While I generally enjoy Hawke and Dafoe, the story really slipped away and became problematic. The plot digressed into the typical ‘hero with the cure on-the-run’ type climax which is so predictable. Plus the crux of the ‘cure’ is based on very unconvincing science. They just didn’t sell it well and it ultimately hurt the film. I can’t criticize it more without spoiling it but I just didn’t buy into it. I mildly enjoyed the final ’domino effect’ sequence but couldn’t fully appreciate it because I couldn’t suspend belief long enough to enjoy it. A small spoiler; Hawke is far more interesting as a vampire than his human counter part which contributed to the momentum loss of the film. There were a lot of extra stuff and storytelling that also convulted it by the end. By the finale, I was starting to feel a bit undead as well.

Overall, Daybreakers showed much more potential than it followed through with. This alternate reality of a vampire filled world was very fascinating, eery, and chilling. Ironically, when the story transitions to the humans, it seems to lose all it’s life. So if you see Daybreakers, go see it for the world it created versus the world it tries to save.

Last updated: 2010-02-16 17:55:11 by tonybkim

Daybreakers

     When you push to far to one extreme, there is always a backlash; disco brought on punk, Bush brought on Obama, and now, thankfully, romanticized, teen angst laden vampires bring on "Daybreakers."  The previews made it look like a typical, fast action, slick, special effects laden bowl of Hollywood tripe.  Little did I know that nothing could have been farther from the truth. 
 
     "Daybreakers" is not your typical vampire movie.  Here, a virus, spread by a bat, began infecting people and turning them into vampires.  It seems that most of the classic vampire lore applies; sunlight kills, as does a stake through the heart and decapitation, and you become a vampire when one feeds on you.  With people becoming vampires at a rapid pace, ordinary human beings soon become a minority and the world is now run by vampires.  These vampires need human blood or they devolve into a nasty, more bat like, mindless, vampire creature, so, human beings are now captured and farmed for blood, however, ten years into Vampireland, there are not enough humans left to sustain the vampire population and blood supplies are beginning to run short.  Enter our hero, Edward Dalton, played by Ethan Hawke, who is a vampire doing research on a blood substitute.  He meets up with former vampire Lionel 'Elvis' Cormac, played Willem Dafoe, and a small group of human resisters.  They have a cure, of sorts, that DaFoe's character accidentally discovered, and they need Hawke's character to develop it.
 
     "Daybreakers" is a bit of an action movie and a bit of a gruesome monster movie with some well thought out social analysis as a backdrop.  The action sequences are well done and appropriate, lacking the current Hollywood penchant for slow motion CGI closeups.  They are fast, shocking, and often gruesome, but not overly so, and appropriate for an adult oriented monster movie.  The visual effects are quite good and are used when necessary rather than the overkill we are used to.  There is even quite a bit of development of what a vampire lead society would be like, complete with social divisions, an underclass, (quite literally under the city) a human hunting vampire army, and coffee.  (Now with 20% blood!)  There could be more development of the culture, but not without sacrificing the action/monster movie core.  The rest is good execution of story and character.  "Daybreakers" isn't a character based drama by any stretch of the imagination, but it does pay enough attention to both character and story to keep both interesting and believable while advancing the plot of a action/monster movie, making it a far better than your typical, shallow, action or monster movie.  The ending is satisfying enough, though we are left in sequel or franchise territory, which I think wouldn't be such a bad idea as long as newcomer writer/directors Michael and Peter Spierig can remain in Australia and away from the influence of major motion picture studios. 
 
     I was pleasantly surprised at "Daybreakers," and if you are sick and tired of wimpy, teen aged vampires bemoaning their feelings, I think you will be too.

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Brian
Ciné Critique Américain

Daybreakers

Based on the trailers, this movie could either have been really good or really bad depending on the writing and the acting. Well, you want to know which it was?

SAVE. YOUR. MONEY!!!!

Great premise but the implementation wasn't that great. I guess this is supposed to be a horror (I'm the wrong person to ask since I'm completely desensitized to what movies call scary). There are plenty of unneeded "jump" moments (points in the movie where there are lulls and then suddenly something loud and seemingly scary pops up, startling the audience). There's also people being ripped apart with body parts and blood flying everywhere, so I guess that places this in the horror genre.

The ending ruined it for me. I thought they would do something clever and was disappointed when they didn't. There were so many great ways to end that movie. Ending it with a voice over that possibly hinted at a sequel, or intro to a TV series, wasn't one of them.

*sigh* So very disappointed. But, as a vampire movie, I had to go see it.



Review originally posted at The Multiverse's Archival Chambers on 14 Jan 2010.

Recommendations: Star Trek (2009), Avatar, 300

D. Renee Bagby<br />
Building New Realms of Passion<br />
http://dreneebagby.com

Last updated: 2010-02-13 10:27:32 by dreneebagby

DAYBREAKERS

It seems like vampires have been everywhere lately… in the movies, on TV, and in books as well.  Daybreakers has a unique story though and is certainly more violent and gory than the other vampire stuff that has been coming out.  We all know the story of how vampires feed on human blood to survive.  Well doesn’t it make sense than that if the vampires are successful in feeding off humans, eventually the vampires would become the majority of the population?  That’s the premise of this film.
Since vampires have been turning humans into vampires, the humans now only make up about 5% of the population.  But here’s the really interesting aspect.  With less humans around, how can the vampires survive without their blood?  When humans are everywhere, it’s easy for the vampires to prey on whoever they want.  But now humans are scarce, and the vampires are rotting into disgusting-looking creatures due to the lack of blood.  These creatures are very aggressive, like monsters.  Even the regular vampires see them as a problem and begin to dispose of the creatures.
So not only is the human population endangered but now so are the vampires.  The vampires live their lives just like humans.  They ride on trains and wait at bus stops and so forth.  They even have subways called “subwalks” for them to walk through in the daytime when they can’t be exposed to sunlight.  Ethan Hawke plays a vampire who is a scientist.  Unlike most of the vampires, he is concerned about the extinction of the human race.  His company has been trying to develop a blood substitute so that vampires won’t depend on humans anymore.  That way they can survive when there are no humans left.
There’s a lot of trouble when others realize that he is trying to help the humans.  He’s also trying to come up with a cure to prevent the vampires from turning into those aggressive creatures.  He feels that a blood substitute would only help for so long.  There’s a lot of blood in this film, not just from biting necks but from decapitations and all sorts of violence.  If you like that kind of stuff, this is a pretty good film that puts an interesting twist on an old genre.

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Recommendations: The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Se7en , 25th Hour

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Last updated: 2010-01-18 18:23:08 by thatmoviedude

Daybreakers...

Tuesday morning I was at the Red Box a little after 7am looking for this movie. I work overnights at WalMart and there's a Red Box machine at the door... very convenient. I love vampires... the greatest horror genre character ever created. I was pleased to see such quality actors stepping up to do this movie. Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, and Sam Neill are very believable in their roles. I thought the idea that most of population are now vampires was a nice twist. The movie was very well thought out... not enough blood to go around causes abnormalities. The vampires deprived of human blood after a short time feed on themselves and other vampires... these vampires are creepy and crazy. Hawke's character is trying to find a blood substitute to save his vampire race from starving to death. All his test have failed and that is when he meets up with the Dafoe character... a former vampire who found a cure. The cure in itself was quite interesting and believable to me. There were a few other interesting side bits that I liked... there was a coffee shop scene where a guy goes ballistic because the waitress didn't put enough blood in his coffee. Instead of milk or cream, they used blood to flavor their coffee... who know vampires even drank coffee??? I just thought it was a cool little spot in the film. I thought the movie was very good for several reasons... quality actors, a well thought out script that kept closer to the traditional vampire genre, and a few twists that kept you interested though out. Tina (my wife) thought it was the best vampire movie she has ever seen. I don't know about that... but it was good! Check out the trailer and see if it grabs you!

Daybreakers
2009 R 98 minutes
Earth's population is up against a vicious plague that's transforming everyone into vampires and draining the world of an increasingly precious resource: blood. Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) and "Elvis" Cormac (Willem Dafoe) must decide what happens next. As the human race count nears zero, will vampires feast on the few men and women who remain, or could science hold the key to a less destructive solution? Sam Neill and Claudia Karvan co-star.

Cast:Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Claudia Karvan, Michael Dorman, Vince Colosimo, Isabel Lucas, Sam Neill, Jay Laga'aia, Christopher Kirby, Renai Caruso, Mungo McKay, Robyn Moore
Director:Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig

Horror and Fear... A Perfect Marriage.

Daybreakers (2010)

Sadly this had to be released in a time where Twilight rules the  vampire world.
Earth’s population is up against a vicious plague that’s transforming   everyone into vampires and draining the world of an increasingly   precious resource: blood. Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) and “Elvis” Cormac   (Willem Dafoe) must decide what happens next. As the human race count   nears zero, will vampires feast on the few men and women who remain, or   could science hold the key to a less destructive solution? Sam Neill  and  Claudia Karvan co-star.

This film has a very nice twist on the apocalypse story that we  usually see in films nowadays. Instead of their being a world full of  humans on extinction, its the vampires world that is, see how it gets  ya!

There are a lot of ideas that the directors The Spierg Brothers use.  The movie works because it tries to explore flaws in the idea of vampire   mythology and our own social structure at the same time. The Spierg   brothers ask questions but don’t answer them but how could they? The   question of how we solve the energy crisis is indeed a loaded question;   we have alternative fuel sources but using them effectively could take   decades to figure out and can we figure it out before it’s too late?   Obviously no film, no matter how smart, could know the answer and this   isn’t “Collapse”, it’s a January vampire movie that serves its primary   purpose of entertaining its audience, I just hope that said audience   doesn’t use too much gasoline driving to the theater.

Their is also a great use of the action and blood here. The Spierig  Brothers show a lot of promise as great directors cause when it comes to  their blood and gore, they actually care for it and want it be looked  at as in a beautiful way, instead of just your normal every day in a  movie killing.

There’s pretty much nonstop action, and the plot twists and turns  with  several story lines: brotherly love/hate relations between Edward  and  brother Frankie (Michael Dorman); the inevitable romance between  Edward  and Audry (Claudia Karvan); father daughter  estrangement/betrayal  between Charles and daughter Alison (Isabel  Lucas); and Elvis’  philosophizing about everything under then sun (and  Moon). A little bit too much in one story that could have gone the  traditional way other than being over-stuffed.

I think the performances in this film are pretty good, just not as  powerful as they could have been. Hawke doesn’t bring out a lot of  emotion within his character, unless he really needs to, and even then,  his lines don’t seem that believable. I think Dafoe was really good,  delivering the best lines in his charmful, yet odd way, but I feel he  was under utilized in here. I think he could have played the villain a  bit better than Sam Neill, although Neill does do a pretty good job at  playing this sinister bad-guy.

There is a little twist at the end of the story here that is worth  mentioning, but not too much so I don’t give the full ending away.

Consensus: Though it is a bit over-stuffed with many  questions left unanswered, The Spierig Brothers still direct this new  twist on the vampire genre, with bloody, dark, and explosive fun.

7/10=Rental!!!

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Daybreakers

I like a good vampire flick now and then, but these days it’s hard to bring something new to the genre and still leave it feeling like a proper vampire story. The “Underworld” movies brought a sense of cool superhero action to the genre. So did Blade and Ultraviolet, but the former is even more a straight superhero flick with a vampire theme and the latter is barely recognizable as a vampire story at all.

Daybreakers, starring Ethan Hawke, Willem Defoe and Sam Neill, creates an entirely new vampire story while keeping it firmly in the genre. 10 years into the future, over 95% of the human population is made up of vampires. Normal humans are an endangered species, hunted down to be placed in “blood farms” to supply food for a starving population of vampires.

Ethan Hawke is a scientist looking for a blood substitute, but he may have just stumbled on a cure. A cure that his company doesn’t want, since it will mean the end of the blood farming business.

Naturally there is a human resistance and of course there are bloody blood-sucking scenes. But two things make this movie a unique vampire movie experience.

The first is the world itself. In a world where most everyone is a vampire, a car chase during the daytime suddenly becomes much more intense than it would normally be. And that’s just one example. The unique application of vampire lore to this world was a high point of interest for me.

The second unique aspect of this vampire flick was the type of relationships focused on. Usually, vampire flicks lean toward romance stories of some kind(if you can really call them that). But family relationships take center stage in this movie and it makes for a refreshing change. Emotional investment in a genre film like this can be hard to come by, but Daybreakers provides characters you can care about.

Although the overall plot is not unpredictable, there are several scenes and elements that took me by surprise, especially one shocking scene near the beginning. Blood sucking also feels painful and unromantic in this movie. Overall, this film is an emotionally engaging experience.

Ethan Hawke is great at being vulnerable, Sam Neil brings some of the menace he displayed in “Event Horizon” and Willem Defoe is Willem Defoe. He also has a fantastic one-liner that had me unexpectedly laughing out loud! Overall, very solid cast performances throughout, with only one slip of an Australian accent (where it was filmed) that I caught.

The special effects are well done, though they aren’t shooting for anything new. I’d compare the quality and frequency of special effects to the first “Underworld” movie. Cool and economical.

There is some brief nudity in this movie, but it is thematically non-sexual and much like “corpse nudity”. (The bodies in question are very dead-looking humans being farmed for blood.)

There’s a little room for discussion of fearing death after watching this movie. But not much, as the point isn’t emphasized. Those who have difference of belief between them and their family members (Be it morality, God or politics) will probably feel a little extra resonance with this movie. But the script is not constructed in a way to make any particular commentary on family relationships in conflict and so discussion is not likely after viewing, even though the themes are strongly present.

This is a cool, intriguing vampire flick that genre fans shouldn’t miss and others may still enjoy for its dramatic elements. There’s not much of philosophical worth to talk about after this movie, but opportunity is there if you scratch around a bit for it.

Rated R for strong bloody violence, language and brief nudity.

Quality: 9.0/10

Relevance: 6.5/10

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