“We’re eating our own resources so people are trying to come up with blood substitutes, trying to get us off of foreign humans.” – Ethan Hawke
We read Ethan’s statement about fifteen times and it just doesn’t make any sense, poor man must be going mad from lack of work. This week we hoped that Daybreakers, a vampire action blood movie would prove us wrong and actually keep us entertained, but luckily we didn’t get our hopes up as Daybreakers is a total disappointment – proof that even if a movie grosses twice as much in profit than it cost to make does not mean it is a good movie!
What’s it about?
A virus has infected most of the world’s population turning them into blood-drinking and sunlight-hating creatures known as vampires. With the world mostly vampire, the remaining humans are hunted and captured as valuable commodities but the food source for the vampires is dwindling and it is up to Ed Dalton (Ethan Hawke), a hematologist, to find a substitute – but Edward is somewhat sympathetic to the human cause despite his brother Frankie’s words. When Ed meets Audrey, a human and Elvis (William Dafoe) a man cured of vampirism after being exposed to small amounts of light he joins their cause and is determined to cure the disease. The only problem is most of the vampires are quite happy being… well vampires, so the trio must stay alive long enough if they are ever to find a cure and save humankind.
Who’s in it?
Don’t feel bad if you don’t remember who Ethan Hawke is, he was considered a pretty decent young actor in the 1990’s but then after a string of pretty bad movies, Ethan disappeared into celebrity limbo until he reemerged once again in 2001 for Training Day. The role of Edward Dalton, the human loving vampire hematologist should have gone to someone who wasn’t trying to save his career because Ethan just seemed so clumsy and awkward in his performance. The movie also stars William Dafoe, Sam Neil and everyone’s favorite Home and Away actress (if that’s what you call people who work on that awful show) Isabel Lucas.
What should I watch instead?
Blade – just the first one though.
Nightwatch
30 Days of Night
Is it really that bad?
From start to finish, this movie could have actually been entertaining but instead we found ourselves rewriting huge chunks of the movie and casting someone decent to play most of the characters. Sam Neil and William Dafoe are not at fault here, they are as usual entertaining and believable in their roles but the rest of the actors feel like they are stumbling blindly around set. This genre of movie has also been done to death and there is nothing new or fresh about Daybreakers. The ending of the movie sucks pretty bad too (no pun intended) but we won’t hold it against you if you don’t make it that far… we almost didn’t either!
