Daybreakers is the newest movie by Michael and Peter Spierig, starring Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill, Claudia Karvan and Michael Dorman.

Plot:
10 years into the future and vampires have pretty much taken over the world. Humans are a minority – and hunted, since the vampires are slowly running out of blood. Edward (Ethan Hawke) works at a research company headed by Charles Bromley (Sam Neill) and tries to develop synthetic blood, unsuccessfully so far. Edward is not only motivated by the fear that they’re all going to starve but also by compassion with the humans, wishing he could become one again himself. So when he stumbles upon human Audrey (Claudia Karvan) and a small resistance, he decides to help.

Daybreakers is an inconsistent affair: On the one hand there’s really good world building, on the other the plot is completely predictable and populated by stock characters. On the one hand the special effects are quite good, on the other the constant blue filter was tiring. The premise (despite one serious flaw*) is interesting, but in the end the execution is too conventional.

The premise was really interesting, and also makes kinda more sense than the usual “vampires are in hiding” concept: If they’re the predator, they’d probably take over the world right quick. It’s interesting that we don’t usually get to see it this way. That also means that there could have been many things to explore: how does the vampire society function? What changes have there really been, if any?

And Daybreakers starts that way, but then quickly dissolves into a standard action movie with a lot of well-made gore and effects (though the consisten use of blue filters got quite annoying after a while), but also a completely uninteresting plot we’ve seen a thousand times already.

It doesn’t help that, though the actors are okay, the characters are the usual stereotypes who don’t get much in the way of reasons or motivations for their actions other than “because that’s the way it is.” Worst offender is Frankie (played by Michael Dorman), Edward’s brother, who [SPOILER] turns his brother against his will, so he doesn’t lose him but then rather turns Edward in or hunts him down than even consider his point of view, only to then make a total turn within seconds to sacrifice himself for the cause. [/SPOILER]

Wille Dafoe gets to say one ridiculous line after the other, lines that are supposed to work like the usual trashtalking in genre movies and be quoted for eternity afterwards, but somehow they all fall short of the mark and remain ridiculous.

Despite all this, it’s quite entertaining. Even if it could have been better.

Summarising: a movie not good enough for its premise.

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*Why shouldn’t it be possible for vampires to breed humans? We’ve done it with cattle, sheep and all other kinds of animals. If you know that your blood reserves are depleting, wouldn’t you do anything to produce more humans?