It’ no newsflash, vampires are everywhere. Stealing the spotlight in books, television, and movies; we can’t seem to get enough. The funny thing about this epidemic love for the bloodsuckers is that virtually everything the vamps are in really sucks (pun intended). The latest vampire story to grace us with its presence is from the writing/ directing Spierig brothers.
Daybreakers takes place in futuristic world where ninety-something percent of the world’s population has been turned into vampires. With a severe shortage of human blood quickly threatening the vampire population, vampire hematologist Edward (yes, Edward) Dalton, played by Ethan Hawke (Training Day, Gattaca), is looking to find a blood substitute to not only save the world, but stop the farming of the few humans left on earth. As the world begins to fall apart due to the shortage of blood, Edward is approached by humans who have an alternative solution to save the world. While more vampires begin morphing into ravenous bat creatures because they’re blood deprived, Dalton and a small group of humans race against the clock to find and perfect a cure.
If that sounds like there is a bit too much story going on for one film, you’re right. Three subsets of the population, multiple races for multiple cures, and a multitude of power struggles amongst government, military, corporations, and both vampire and human vigilante worlds make this plot a little too much to handle for it’s one hour and thirty eight minute running time. Don’t get me wrong though, I wasn’t asking for more. Despite all the dimensions of crap they try to cram into this movie it still feels like it drags on and on, only to finish not really wrapping up anything at all.
This movie has approximately two redeeming factors that may make it worthy of a rental.. Willem Defoe (Spider-Man, The Boondock Saints) brings his usual spunk with a character you wish was in seen more in the movie. His unique character adaptation and one-liners save the film from being a complete waste of time. The other noteworthy factor is the social stratification among the vampire population. The severely blood-deprived are seen as bottom feeders of the population. It’s an interesting dynamic to stratify the non-human species, but like I mentioned before everything is overcrowded with each other. Hunting and hating humans as well as dealing with the lower class vampires was all too much to focus on and build a complete story around, so the unique relationship just gets lost in the shuffle.
As if there isn’t enough going on with the plot, choices in setting and wardrobe don’t really help smooth things over. Architecture and technology clearly set the scene in the future but odd wardrobe choices make the characters look like they in more of a roaring twenties type decade, which isn’t even backed up with themes about hedonism or overindulgence. The contrast isn’t helpful and doesn’t add to the story. It really only adds to the feeling that this movie is a bunch of stuff chopped up and then pieced back together, badly.
All-in-all, the Speirig twins brought a lot of unique elements that really had potential to make a great story. All together, it was too much. That being said, eliminating enough of the elements to make this film coherent and less choppy would have probably left us with just another futuristic-world-being-taken-over-by-supernatural-creatures film. Credit must be given to the film's dialogue, which was luckily very uncheesy and pretty clever in most of the film - really the only thing that saves the film from being over the top ridiculous. Is Daybreakers worth a movie ticket? Not really, but don’t write off the Spierig twin movies just yet, there’s potential there and I’ll be looking forward to their next, hopefully much better, project.
