YOURZ
This year, we intend to randomly select movies from our DVD collection to review, kind of similar to the blindfold method we employed last year for our CD collection. This is the first DVD off the rack, a fairly recent Australian-made movie called Daybreakers (2009).
This year, we intend to randomly select movies from our DVD collection to review, kind of similar to the blindfold method we employed last year for our CD collection. This is the first DVD off the rack, a fairly recent Australian-made movie called Daybreakers (2009).
Written and directed by the Spierig Brothers and starring Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Sam Neil and Claudia Karvan, this is yet another vampire-related movie, albeit with a sci-fi bent. Despite being a hackneyed theme now, Daybreakers is actually a slighty refreshing take on the whole vampire shtick and thankfully, there is nary an angst-ridden teen in sight.
The story takes place in the near future when vampires have become the dominant species. Blood supplies are very low and human beings are being hunted and milked into extinction. The directors did a good job in giving a decent enough back story to hang the movie off, but it did leave me wondering why the vamps didn't start some sort of captive breeding program to ensure their food source didn't run out. But hey, this wouldn't make much of a story, would it?
Ethan Hawkes' character is a vampire haematologist with a conscience who happens to work for the largest supplier of blood to the population (kind of like a vegetarian hippy working for McDonalds, I guess). Without giving too much away, he meets a group of humans, led by Dafoe's character who tell him they have a cure to 'the vampire plague'. He sets about helping them develop it.
The cast work well together, although the script gets a bit ponderous at points. The combination of sci-fi and horror works well enough, although initially I thought there was a good chance for this to be more innovative and without the usual cliches. But the high action end, complete with gory set pieces, is a bit of let down. Its almost as though brothers Spierig ran out of creative juice and fell back on the same sort of devices I've seen time and again. Even so, while it certainly isn't vital, I wouldn't call it a complete waste of time.
VERDICT: Hmmm...
