Daybreakers is the type of vampire movie that we all desperately need after the Twilight Saga fiascoes. With Eclipse coming out soon, I thought I'd review an actually decent vampire movie to kick off this blog. I'll give you an in-depth look at its weirdo plot, and then my final verdict.
Daybreakers stars Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Claudia Carvan, and Sam Neill, but that's probably not why you're here. The plot goes a little something like this:
Edward Dalton (yes, Edward) is a vampire who is working on a blood substitute for a supply company. He's got a lot of pressure on him, because all of the humans are dying out. Why, you ask? Because the vampire population now accounts for 95% of life on earth, or some ridiculous figure like that. There was this poorly-explained plot device that some plague turned a large number of humans into vampires, and they began to turn the humans around them. That happened in the year 2009. This movie takes place in 2019, 10 years later, and the food supply is almost gone. Vampires have begun farming humans in these creepy factories that try to harvest every last drop of blood from them. Bad news is, there's only enough left for a month. So what does a society of vampire do? They make a substitute. And that nifty back story brings us to the actual movie.
Edward is close to making a breakthrough, and he tries the substitute on a "living" patient. He seems to be a military private, and Edward injects him. There's a nice visual effect with the vampire having his non-existent pulse monitored, but something goes awry. The patient's temperature rises to a sweltering 70 degrees! He replies, "I'm fine, sir" and then projectile vomits like the screen hasn't seen since The Exorcist. Then I'm pretty sure Michael Bay takes over filming because the poor vampire explodes in a gory spray shower.
The poor, forlorn hematologist gets in his shiny Chrysler with futuristic displays and whatnot and drives home. He catches sight of a police car, and another car. They end up nearly colliding. Edward gets out (probably to ask for insurance and gets licence plates), but these humans jump out with cross bows. He decides to take pity on them and put them in his car so the vampire police won't catch them. The woman, Audrey, makes a mental note of him, and they drive off.
Our protagonist heads home to see his brother, a human-hunting soldier, named Frankie. Frankie offers Ed a wine bottle full of human blood, but it turns out that Edward won't drink human blood. Who does this remind me of? Ah, probably no one. Anyway, they are attacked by a man-bat thing. It turns out that they are called "subsiders", vampires who fed on another vampire's blood.
The next day, Audrey comes to Edward in his home to ask him for help. She asks him to meet her at noon in some field-y place. He goes and meets the other central character, Elvis. Yes, the one who's been dead for over thirty years. Actually, that would've made a much better film, but Elvis is actually a southerner who was-once-a-vampire-but-is-now-human. I need a better term, so they'll be called "transvamps". Elvis is a transvamp, and this news excites Edward. There's a cure! He'll market it, become rich, and retire with a rich old-man cat. Only problem is, the troops come in with tanks and begin to blow them up. Frankie is heading them. This is decidedly not good, so they all pile into Edward's car. But bullet holes rip through the automobile and light streams in which leads to an incredibly humorous scene where Edward shrieks and cowers as the sunlight threatens to burn him.... okay... maybe I'm the only one who'd find that funny. They leave Frankie behind, where he gets singed in the sun.
Now for the interesting part. Edward gets cured in a long and complicated process which involves fire, water, and fried chicken. So he's a transvamp as well. Back at the vampire city, Charles's daughter comes for a visit and Frankie forcibly turns her into a bloodsucker. She feeds on herself and becomes a subsider. I think there's a metaphor there... but you're not reading this for the metaphors. There's a public burning of the subsiders, and Frankie becomes worried. As the film winds down, there's tons of violence and blood. Edward talks to his co-worker about the cure but ends up being betrayed. They get Charles to feed on Ed, so Charles becomes a transvamp. And his bodyguards eat him, and become transvamps. Nice domino, effect, no? So, the army eats itself, there's another small scuffle, and the movie ends with a moving voice over about the cure.
Damn, that was long. My other reviews won't be that lengthy (unless you guys find them amusing) it's just that the plot needed to be explained... in so many, many words. I'd recommend seing it though.
My verdict: Better vampire flick than Twilight, New Moon, and possibly even Interview with the Vampire. I actually enjoyed it. The color scheme is blue, grey, and black, so no need to worry about your color-blind uncle watching with you. There's a few great scenes and quirky visual touches, including a Starbucks-like stall in a subway which sells 20% blood coffee, a sign with Uncle Sam reading "I want YOU to capture humans", and the Subwalk, and underground daytime transport.
All in all, as my first review, I need to let Daybreakers off the hook with three and a half stars out of five.
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