Daybreakers

Fresh idea, poorly executed


The Story:


Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) is a researcher in the year 2019, in which an unknown plague has transformed the world’s population into vampires. As the human population nears extinction, vampires must capture and farm every remaining human, or find a blood substitute before time runs out.

Dr. Edward who sympathetic to humans and sees his work as a way of alleviating their suffering but his views on finding a solution change considerably when he meets Elvis (Willem Dafoe) who found a way to transform himself from being a vampire to again take human form.

Release Date: January 8, 2010 (US)

Distributor: Lionsgate

Directed by: Spierig Brothers (Undead)

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Claudia Karvan, Sam Neill, Michael Dorman, Isabel Lucas

Budget: $20,000,000

Gross Revenue: $48,895,051 (worldwide), $29,975,979 (US)


Review:


Ever got tired of watching the same vampire/zombie movies? Where a group of man looking for a way to survive when they were  surrounded by those creatures? If last year we saw something different in Zombieland, now there is a new original idea presented by Spierig Brothers in Daybreakers.


In Daybreakers, it’s the vampires who’re struggling for survival. When human race nearly extinct, they are desperate looking for a new source of blood, by researching a substitute blood led by Dr. Edward Dalton.

It’s unclear how the vampires could taken control of earth, but human ridiculously choose to become the blood-sucker creature. Why? Because they are immortal, and there will be no worries about them bite your throat (that proves to be wrong later, because they are starting to eat each other when there are no more humans to kill). Although, this path made them sacrifice to not going out in daytime when there is sunlight.


Dr. Edward who turned to vampire unwillingly by his brother Frankie, found a way to revert his change after he met ex-vampire Elvis and a group of humans. He then trying to convinced Frankie and the others to find their way back to humanity.


This movie supposedly in action genre, but the pace is way to slow that you might get bored even when its running time only 98 minutes. When I said about how this movie was poorly executed, although the plot is fresh and make common sense, the action sequences was bad.


The actions here way too focused in blood bursting everywhere and vampires eating each-other. No tense gunfighting or well-choreographed hand-to-hand combat here, but there was still one nice car-chasing scene where the vampires only can see through outside camera when driving on daylight. A little violence is good, but not in disgusting manner like this one.


My Rating: C+

IMDb user rating: 6.6/10

Rotten Tomatoes meter: 67%

Metacritic: 57/100

Yahoo! critics: B-

Yahoo! users: B-