Daybreakers - Vampire Noir Almost Worth Recommending

William Defoe The Vampire Hunter, I'm thinking the Spierig Brothers should have gone with that title; has a better ring to it than Daybreakers. Daybreakers is fairly unique. This is a film noir science fiction movie set in the future. A future that has only five percent of the human race left and a more-than-capable vampire race currently struggling with the loss of their most valuable resource; blood. Did I mention William Defoe is in it? Defoe is probably one of the best characters in the movie seeing as he was cast as the white/black comic relief [if that makes any sense]. Look I like Daybreakers, really and truly. The style and cinematography won my heart, but I can not recommend this movie to a lot of movie buffs. The plot has more holes than Swiss cheese. And whether this is a fault of bad writing or in combination with bland acting, star Ethan Hawke was surprisingly sub-par. At the very least Daybreakers is worth a watch, but not with too-serious of an eye. Its a 98-minute movie which could stand to be a touch longer for development purposes.

In the year 2019 vampires finally overcome the human race in every way possible. Necks were bitten and job markets were outsourced to the 3rd shift bloodsuckers. Things are looking up for the vampiric race. With a crack team of engineers and doctors, the upper-class vampires have established a corporation of civilized blood farming. Really, they wrangled up a bunch of humans and sat them in a cold sterile room and juiced them like we do our bovine stock. Genius! Not only are Michael and Peter Spierig the directors of Daybreakers, they are also the writers. If there is anything I hate more, its directors who write their own movies. Its a special craft that very few director-writers can pull off and even then, few within that category pull it off well. What you will notice from the opening couple of scenes of Daybreakers is the attention to design and wardrobe. This could be a vampire noir set in 1959 and I would not know, well the uber-tinted window cars and wireless human blood farm is a bit of a giveaway, but aside from that; pitch perfect! The second impressive element you will notice during the narrative 'recap' is how society is divided. I have my qualms with Daybreakers later events, but I could watch the first thirty minutes of this movie over and over. Some vampires beg for blood from the upper-echelon of society, where others have resorted to attacking fellow vampires. Hollywood is funny, even in our science fiction fantasies there's still a recession.

There is something seldom discussed in most vampire fiction. How well does a vampire culture assimilate to technology and class structure? If Daybreakers spent an extra ten or twenty minutes on this topic it would have made for a better movie than what we are ultimately subjected to; a predictable 'human-saves-the-day' plot. Enter Ethan Hawke. Vampire scientist, Edward Dalton [Hawke], by this I mean he is a vampire who dabbles in science. Eddie has the painstaking job of finding a proper blood substitute for a soon-to-be-ravenous vampire population. Him and his buddy scientist played by Vincent Colosimo, work for blood farming mogul Charles Bromley. Bromley is a part of that upper-vampire class I mentioned early, too good for hunting down humans on the street and nipping their necks so he became a billionaire off of turning humans into juiceboxes. The story is pretty light and fluffy, Eddie tries and fails to find a substitute and eventually stumbles onto freedom-fighting humans by accident. Because of his 'all-around nice guy' character [I mean he doesn't even drink human blood, wait shouldn't he be dead?] he helps them and this is where the William Defoe-bot comes in!

Daybreakers jumps ship as soon as the focus is shifted from the city and the tension of society. Moreover, the tension between the 'underdwellers' [vampires who go too long without blood begin mutating and turn on fellow vampires] and the urban society became more and more interesting only to be left on the drawing board for a lame fight between, what? You guessed it. A fight between the humans and vampires. It would have been interesting to see this concept followed through. A sophisticated society of vampires and their daily problems only not in a sexy-lame way like Underworld and Blade 3. Daybreakers really has something for you to watch within the short length of the movie. The CG is somewhat inconsistent which brings me to my largest point.

I hate it when a meager-sized budget movie, shows me its cheapness. There are a handful of movies that are made for, what Hollywood considers, 'pennies'; but successfully tell stories in a way where the budget is such a non-factor. Daybreakers had the power of WETA Studios [King Kong, District 9, Lord Of The Rings] behind them, but I suspect the reason you see so many cheap 'bat scares' are because the producers had about eight dollars and fifty cents to their name. Its really unfortunate, Daybreakers is not that bad, just really rough around the edges ... also the ending is both hilarious and nonsensical. William Defoe is your savior in this movie, but he serves as Daybreakers biggest plot drawback. When Lionel 'Elvis' Cormac [Defoe] tells you how he got the cure [I won't spoil it] you'll think, "Wow, that was cool." Then immediately think, "Wait. Vampires drive around all the time, you mean to tell me only one person was able to find this cure?" Not only that, Defoe's character [because I refuse to call him Elvis...he's much to cool for that] is really the only character worth caring about. I cared little for Eddie once his character arch was revealed. His brother has those darn puppy dog eyes, but their story was better served debating civilian vs soldier life. The blood boss' storyline between his daughter were interesting but not enough for me to care about who lived or died. Really, the movie is too short to care about anyone that much, but its long enough to not hate the movies leap-in-logic plot. There is no explaination as to why the cure works, how the cure works. You have to buy into it or see a whole bunch of yellow-eyed people biting each other and then subsequently freaking out.

Daybreakers leaves a wide variety of social commentary on the table, but ultimately lets the audience down on a character-by-character basis. Go for William Defoe and stay for the cinematography. Also, there is an epic bloodbath at the end of the film which is in slow motion. I'm guessing after the Spierig brothers Undead movie [which I liked] made Roger Eberts 'Worst Movie Of 2005' list this may have been a grandiose shout out to him. I liked Daybreakers, but chances are few people will.

I Give Daybreakers...

A "Nicolas Cage Vampire Kiss" Award