Tonight was one of those "bottom of the barrel" movie choices... okay that's a little unfair, but it was definitely on the B list of things we wanted to see. In fact we're pretty much totally out of A list movies at the moment, and the only other B list movie was all the way down at Marion, and it's just too damn hot to drive all the way down there...So, Daybreakers won out!
It started out quite promisingly... great "whole world" concept where most of the population are vampires, search for a substitute, evolution, cure... blah blah blah... but somewhere along the way it kinda got schlocky...
Cue the exploding vampires, the overenthusiastic blood sprays, the creatures who don't really end up being that important and the sound of wet liver hitting the foley stage floor... seriously, there was way too much blood spraying and wet liver sounds... so much so that it started to be unintentionally funny.
If they'd toned that way the hell down they could have had an exemplary little movie... all psychological and dramatic, but with vampires... but no, they had to go all Ed Wood on us.
There also seemed to be far too much plot going on... what with the cure and the humans and the subwhatevers (I can't remember what they were called)... and the brothers and the father/daughter thing and this and that and the other... too much damn plot... and a lot of it not really explored or not really folded that well into the whole.
But the basic concepts were good... and when it did tend towards schlock it was entertaining schlock.
And none of the vampires fell in love with anybody, so I was thankful for that!
Because the movie was filmed in Australia, even though it wasn't set here, there was a fair bit of "local talent" taking up supporting roles, and some fairly uneven American accents in some cases...
Oh, and Sam Neill gets added to the list of people who should never play vampires... along with Richard Roxburgh... I know the concept was that vampires were every kind of people, but it just wasn't working for me.
Partly because I'm not terribly fond of Mr Neill.
Ethan Hawke on the other hand... so hot as a vampire! And Michael Dorman, playing his brother (also a vampire) wasn't bad either.
Actually the vampire makeup effects weren't too bad... golden/glowy contact lenses to show off the vampire eyes (although there were a few scenes/actors where you could tell that the lenses were obviously shifting around on the actor's eyeball), pale skin, fangs, and a general otherworldliness.
One thing that did bother me later on in the movie were their bite marks. This is one of those realities where one bite from a vampire turns you into one (which, while useful from a storytelling standpoint, is just stupid for a species... why would you want to turn prey into competition?)... so everybody had a bite mark on their neck. Which I don't have a problem with (other than the whole "healing" thing... shouldn't the bite have faded?) except all the bites seemed to be horizontal. There is no way known that you bite somebody's neck horizontally... you just can't do it, not if you want to drink their blood... you come at it either vertically or at some kind of angle.
And the few bits of biting we actually see in the movie happen exactly like that... so it's a small oversight, but a detail somebody should have been paying attention to.
All of which makes it sound like it wasn't enjoyable... it actually was. It's a nice bit of "put your brain in neutral and enjoy the ride" filmmaking and worth seeing.
Although I did keep wondering which building was Eddy's...
yani's rating: 2 haematologists out of 5
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