Daybreakers

Daybreakers is perhaps the shuddering wake-up call to Twilight fans. It is now the year 2019, and a plague outbreak ten years ago has turned most of the population into vampires. However, as time goes on, the human population is threatening to go into extinction and, with that, the vampires' blood supply. The blood supply is already dwindling enough as it is and more and more vampires are becoming "subsiders", vampires that have mutated due to lack of blood. Hematologist Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) is racing to find a substitute blood supply. However, when he befriends a small band of humans, he might just have found something that is much better than a simple blood substitute: a cure. Of course, it'll only work if he can get the full cooperation of Mr. Bromley (Sam Neill), the vampire executive of the only company that's supplying blood. Whatever the case may be, Dalton must finalize the cure before the blood supply is gone and the human population becomes totally extinct.

This movie takes a middle stance between the traditional and contemporary vampire fight. While vampires like Edward Dalton still have some bit of humanity in them (refusing to use the human population like cattle and to drink their blood), there's a large majority of vampires that don't quite care about the survival of the human population. Instead, with their blood supply dwindling, it all comes down to their true natures as survival instincts are kicked in. There are several scenes of graphic violence as dozens of vampires leap onto one human and begin feeding like crazy, from ripped organs to decapitated heads. And these are still the sane ones.

While this movie certainly isn't deserving of an A-rating, it does have its perks. First the splendid acting by Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill, and Willem DaFoe. Then there's also the cool technology all the cars in the movie now have, technology designed especially for vampires to drive during the day without exposing themselves to sunlight. Other than that, the entire movie is actually quite silly. There are quite a number of things left unexplained. The first method of curing is actually quite a ridiculous cure method, and the second method makes even less sense. Except for a few brief meetings between vampires and vampires or vampires and humans in the attempt to find a blood substitute or cure, there's really no plot to the movie. Instead, the movie is filled mainly with bloody feeding frenzies. Cut out those feeding scenes, and you've really got nothing else. The movie also ends in a cliffhanger, which I find to be a rather pathetic event. There's no widespread use of the cure or anything. Instead, you only find the three humans (two cured vampires and one human) driving/running away into the sunset with a voice-over that says that there's a cure and it's not too late to change.

Unfortunately, it's not that easy to spot the vampires in this movie. Their only distinguishing feature are their golden eyes, but those are rarely distinguishable. You don't see any fangs unless they're feeding. There's really nothing to tell that they are vampires if you place them next to a human, provided that the two can stand next to one another without the vampire going crazy and completely dismembering the human. Yikes. The subsiders, on the other hand, are extremely easy to tell that they're...well, a subsider, for they've degenerated into beings that are a cross between human and bat. All in all, I'm quite disappointed by this lack of distinguishing characteristics for vampires. This movie hasn't at all introduced a revolutionary characteristic of vampires.

Despite my criticism, the movie is still nevertheless a good movie to watch to pass the time. It's really just a stimulant to the senses. It's a nice chase thriller but it's lacking a good plot or catchy dialogue. Nor are there any memorable characters or settings. In the end, Daybreakers, at 98 minutes, is really just a horror/thriller movie for fun only.