Long story short, it’s a really solid movie that actually asks the viewer to come along for the ride. Good performances and an interesting story dynamic make it one to see. The plot is a little bit uneven at points, and the cinematography gets a little bit hokey (as are almost all of Willem Defoe’s lines, but hey, he’s Willem Defoe so who cares?!) but all around it’s an interesting entry into vampire lore. Reminded me, at a couple of small points of Gattaca (getting by as a flawed individual in a basically perfect world) and The Matrix (people as a source of power/food.) What’s funny is that it almost feels more like a vampire drama than it does a horror movie. Part of me wonders what the first draft of the script looked like and how many actual scary or action scenes were in it. I had the sense that the studio might have looked at the Spierig Brothers at one point and said, “We need you to throw in a couple more fight/action sequences so that the previews will be a bit more enticing and we can get butts into the theaters.” Kind of a shame honestly, some of those scenes feel a little bit tacked on and don’t quite flow with the narrative being told. Not a huge loss though. Sam Neill is really good as the corporate villain and I always enjoy Ethan Hawke, though he isn’t much different here from his character in Training Day or Gattaca. Get out and see it.
If you’ve got interest in seeing it with a completely blank slate, and no idea what the plot is about then you should stop reading now. It’s going to be impossible for me to talk about this movie without giving away the basic premise of the plot.
For those of you who don’t mind knowing what the plot of the movie deals with, read on!
SPOILERS AHEAD
I liked Daybreakers. I mean, I really liked Daybreakers. Is it a “great” movie? No, it isn’t. Will it be on anyone’s Top Ten lists at the end of 2010? Probably not. But the movie packs a heck of a punch on a lot of different levels, and I think that it deserves a little bit of recognition for that.
The set up of the movie is this: It’s 2019 and a vampire epidemic that broke out in 2009 has led to an Earth that is ruled by vampires where humans are hunted down as a food source and “farmed” for blood. You know how we keep thousands of chickens at farms where their sole purpose is to make eggs and eventually be turned into our dinners? Yeah, now replace the chickens with people, and the farmer with a vampire. Get the picture? Look at the picture up there, those are all humans, now imagine that the picture is actually a window that you’re looking through and guess what? You’re the vampire.
What’s so interesting about this movie is the vampire dynamic it establishes. The vampires presented here are just like you and me. They have jobs, they go to work, read the paper, watch the nightly news (with vampire newsmen and women), and they get their daily coffee fix at the local Starbuck’s (complete with a couple spoonfuls of blood.) Now, that’s not to say that the traditional “vampire” rules don’t still apply to them. We all know vampires can be killed by exposure to sunlight, so what we have here is an entire movie that exists more or less in the dead of night. Everyone goes to work at 8pm and gets off at 5am, before the public service announcements pumped through the city on loud speakers tell us that sunrise is an hour away, so that we can get home to our completely shuttered suburban home where we’d make dinner before catching some sleep for the day.
What the movie presents so well, and is so fresh to see, is this dynamic fleshed out from top to bottom. Every car is retrofitted with shutters so that, if you find yourself driving during the day, you’ll be protected and can still see the road through the use of a roof mounted 360ยบ camera feed to the interior monitors in your car. Cities have put in “subwalks” or tunnel systems in place of sidewalks, allowing for passage between buildings and streets during the day if needs be. Every single element of dark/light is handled with complete care and utter faith, and it’s really interesting to see how those relationships play out as the movie develops. Imagine you’re a human being and the only place you might find to safely meet other surviving humans is in the middle of a wide open field at high noon with a sky full of sunlight. Weird, right?
What about the other vampire truths? Let’s say you’re married and have a couple of kids before the epidemic. Now let’s say that you and your husband/wife are infected but you’re kids aren’t. What do you do? Do you go through the unpleasant business of “turning” your kids? Knowing that the alternative is that they will be hunted and farmed? What will your kids think of the idea? Vampires are immortal, but they never age. So would your kids want to stay 8 and 10 forever? Aging while stuck in a child’s body?
Then there’s the blood. That’s the hitch in the whole thing. Humans are basically a finite resource as they’re being farmed and, in this world, the supply is quickly running out. Without blood vampires die, but before they die, this movie posits that they devolve into the more typical winged, bald, grotesque, malformed, bat-like creatures seen in tons of other vampire flicks. They lose the power of speech, their appearance degenerates, and their only purpose is to scavenge for blood. With supplies running out the population of these devolved creatures begins to skyrocket. And suddenly the movie adds another layer of commentary as the still normal, healthy vampires are forced to begin mass exterminating these creatures by rounding them up with military death squads and dragging them out into...you guessed it...broad daylight. What if you’re a parent who can’t feed their children? What then? Watch them burn? Or find food any way you can?
Lastly there is the question of corporate greed in this new world. As if vampires weren’t enough to deal with, the mega corporations are still around. Let’s just try on the idea that Exxon, Shell, BP, and Wal-Mart have gotten into the “people farming” business. And as blood supplies decrease the demand soars, which means more money in the pockets of the guys at the top. Now, why would these companies ever want to find a “cure” for this disease of vampirism? Wouldn’t it serve to keep the population hooked on blood? Or something similar?
Moreover, why would any vampire want to find a cure? I mean, you’re never going to get sick, you’re never going to die, you have almost otherworldly strength, and you’ve learned to enjoy the dark. It’s ultimately not so bad, as long as there is blood to sustain you.....
I realize, after writing this, that I talk too much, and will work on shortening these up in the future. Thanks for your patience. Leave a comment!
