Daybreakers

Daybreakers (2009) is set in a dystopian society where almost every human has been turned into a vampire, this movie follows Edward Dalton, a vampire who works alongside humans to find a cure. I'm so glad I watched this film because I really enjoyed it and found it to be super gripping and engaging. The performances were a big standout and I ended up rooting for our protagonist!

I loved the cinematography in this film! It was very well thought out, and added a weird dream-like look to the movie. The colour palettes were really nice and the green and blue tints were great. It was a visually dark movie too, but I thought it pulled it off well.

The visual effects mainly haven't aged that well, however the gore still looked really good and I was impressed! Also, I loved the look of the vampires, it was so simple yet effective!

Ethan Hawke was likeable and iconic in his role, he was a great protagonist! Alongside him, Willem Dafoe did brilliantly, and Sam Neill made an intimidating and strong villain with a clear motive. The performances are helped by fun and engaging dialogue.

The score was used very tastefully, and was very subtle. The strings used were super fitting and added to the ominous and eerie atmosphere the film set. In addition, the sound design was effective too!

The film set an unnerving and weird tone, and had slow and steady pacing. It had a strange vibe that I really liked and was super enjoyable! The film is consistently interesting and full of tense and unique moments. Something I really liked was the cure, and how it was vampire blood. This was such a smart bit of writing and the reveal was great. The last 10 minutes were chaotic too, and a very satisfying climax.

A vampiric corporation sets out to capture and farm the remaining humans while researching a blood substitute.

Daybreakers has a captivating promising start, the is year 2019, a plague has transformed almost every human into vampires.

Directors Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig give the viewer an awe-inspiring vision of the future, the cityscape is amazing. It's also packed with excellent make up effects and nicely executed CGI. The film reflects some great parallels of today's social structure and struggles.

Sam Neill is the perfect vampire leader and Ethan Hawke is good as the trouble vampire who feels pity on the remaining humans.

However, sadly the film takes a turn for the worse when the usually excellent veteran actor Willem Dafoe turns up. From then on the film stumbles until the end credits as it stomps on the great idea's and visuals that came before, with bad dialogue and corny premises. Once the action moves from the city to countryside it's as if the producers turned a switch to- 'mediocre', with echoes of John Carpenters Vampires (1998).

An engaging strong intellectual start, regrettably becomes a futile unoriginal drip by the end.

Daybreakers is about a plague that 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....but you already knew that. Like putting a plastic bag over some one's head, things quickly get violent and out of control.

Special effects: Moderate, not much was needed for the movie. The death of the vampires were a little more violent than usual, however the entertainment behind it balanced it out.

Plot: "Find a cure or we all die" has been used frequently before, and there wasn't much of a twist.

Setting: The setting was a dark futuristic setting, Imagine Las Vegas at night...with all white neon. Perfect setting for this movie. Worth seeing? Yes. Not worth sprinting to the theaters, however it is worth seeing. I'd give it a 7/10.

This movie is such a relief from the romantic necrophilia of the Twilight series. It's good to see scary vampires again.

It's the year 2019 and the world has been taken over by vampires. Humans are being farmed for their blood, but there are fewer and fewer of them. Vampires turn feral when they don't get human blood. So the dwindling human race have real devastating consequences. Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) is a vampire, but he's searching for a blood substitute. He wants to save the human race. That's why the humans want his help for the ultimate cure.

The concept is terrific. The execution lacks the required intensity. While it has great ideas, the movie just doesn't have the pace or the action to sustain it. Ideas are not enough. This movie needs better hands to squeeze more excitement out of the script.

The big acting names in this are Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, and Sam Neill. They give the movie instant credibility that's more than its B-movie roots. However to justify that credibility, they need to increase the drama.

In the near future, a bat-borne plague has turned 99% of the human population into vampires. The remaining humans are hunted down and farmed for blood by a corporation headed by Charles Bromley (Sam Neill), an individual who views vampirism as a miracle since he was dying before the plague broke out. There aren't many humans left though, and when a vamp goes without blood, they turn into grotesque Nosferatu variants called subsiders. Bromley enlists his top hematologist (Ethan Hawke) to come up with a blood substitute, but an underground band of surviving humans has a different resolution in mind.

This film has a unique premise, and for the first hour or so, I thoroughly enjoyed exploring the world that Michael and Peter Spierig created. The opening scene shows one of the downsides of vampirism, as a girl takes her life rather than be stuck in a child's body for eternity. There were other fun touches thrown in too, like blood coming in wine bottles and being poured over ice. The film's storyline touches on themes of corporate greed taking precedent over the good of the public, and there is an underlying oil subtext that is less than subtle.

The second half turns into a clichéd mess. The ending in particular is really cheesy as a result. Truthfully, I would have been happy if the whole band of humans idea had been scrapped entirely. Surely they could've come up with something a little better. I mean, this is a pretty creative film. Other segments of the picture seem rushed, like the subplot involving Bromley's daughter. Speaking of Bromley, Sam Neill is one of my favorite actors, so it was great seeing him in a genre film again. His presence is the highlight of Daybreakers. I've never much cared for Hawke, and his performance here did nothing to change my mind. Willem Dafoe also pops up, and while I usually do like him, his character here is annoying.

As is, chalk it up as a movie that could've been more. Oh well, at least it's way better than the last work from the Spierigs, Undead. That was one of the rare films that I stopped watching halfway through. Quick note: I saw a father and two young teens leave shortly after an early scene involving a gory testing of the blood substitute. Guess they thought this would be another Twilight.