Daybreakers (Movie Review)

Movie Review
Daybreakers
2010
Starring: Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe
Directed by: Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig

While some may criticize Daybreakers for being another movie to try and cash in on the vampire craze at the end of the twentieth century, it does have an interesting concept behind it. It has a very good story and offers quite a bit of logic behind an illogical idea. However, the biggest problem for the Spierig brothers’ directed movie is that the ending is bad. Really bad. How much you’ll enjoy the movie will depend on how disappointed you’ll feel with the ending.

The year is 2019 and the world has succumbed to the vampire apocalypse. Instead of civilization falling apart, everything is running smoothly because mostly everyone is a vampire. That is, everything was running smoothly. With humans being an endangered species, the world supply of human blood is reaching critical levels and without an alternative plan, all the vampires in the world will revert to a rudimentary form of a vampire that resembles a mix between deranged human and deranged bat that has been rejected from hell. Yeah, they’re that creepy.

Enter Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke). He’s a hematologist who doesn’t care for the taste of human blood. The company he works for is striving to find a solution to the problem by trying to create a synthetic type of human blood. However, attempt after attempt has resulted in utter failure. While his company is looking at the economic benefits of finding a solution, Dalton sees the idea of creating a synthetic blood supply as a way of helping the human species to come out of the darkness and live alongside with the vampires. One evening, Dalton gets into a car accident with a minivan carrying a bunch of humans who are driving back to a hiding spot. Through a series of secret encounters and messages, Dalton is summoned to meet with Elvis (Willem Dafoe). Elvis, by a freak accident, had turned back into a human after being a vampire for years. Elvis wants to share what he thinks is the solution with Dalton to save the human race. Elvis and Dalton work quickly together to find a solution before they’re found by the vampire army.

The horrible thing about this movie is that all but the last ten minutes is really good. The story is really interesting. Usually we see stories of vampires (or another evil supernatural force) trying to wipe humanity off the earth. In this case, we see the aftermath; which isn’t exactly an apocalypse. The world has continued to maintain itself and most people are living their lives just as they did previously (except they sleep in the day instead of night and they can’t see themselves in a mirror). The whole concept is smart because there’s no convention that says that vampires would destroy the Earth. It gets even cleverer in that it takes into account that if most everyone is a vampire, there would be no more blood supply and the vampires would die off. The story alone makes the film worth watching.

The problem though is the ending. It comes across as amateurish and lame. There’s too much reliance on using (lots of) blood and violence during the ending climatic scene to bolster the film. It doesn’t help the film; it shoots it in the foot. There are too many times in the few last minutes of the movie where you’ll be rolling your eyes. It’s a large bucket of lame and kills all the momentum most of the movie had set up. It’s very senseless. In fact, the main characters look kind of turned off by all the unnecessary mayhem. It could have been done a lot better with a lot less commotion.

☆☆☆☆