Reviewed by Kate Rodger
“Life’s
a bitch, and then you don’t die”. Being a vampire sometimes isn’t that
much fun. Especially when the human blood supply is getting thin on the
ground and you and your vampire mates are in danger of turning into
nasty bat-like bloodsucking creatures who make your bog-standard
vampire look cute and cuddly.
Daybreakers
is a fairly fresh twist on the vampire genre. It’s 2019 and
the world is over-run with normal everyday vampires. The remaining
humans are hunted and then farmed for their blood, and there’s not many
of us left.
Sam Neill is Charles Bromley, an evil
vampire who heads up a corporation on a mission to engineer a
substitute for human blood in order to save the vampires from their
nasty fate. His chief scientist Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) is losing
his faith, and has a crisis of vampy conscience about their
bloodsucking ways. He finds himself rather suddenly in league with the
few remaining humans, and on a path to seeing the light to a brighter
future for them all.
That path is, of course,
crowded with all sorts of drama and intrigue, some brotherly conflict,
a bit of romance, some male bonding, a few crossbows, and doused
heavily with buckets of blood.
Willem Dafoe plays
a good guy, and a rare one; a vampire who freakishly managed to become
human again. He holds the key to a new world. It’s up to Edward (must
all good vampires be called Edward?) to get it into the lock and turn
it.
This film is made across the ditch, and
in-between bloodbaths you can play “spot the Home and
Away actor” (Isabel Lucas), and then there’s that kiwi guy
from Star Wars (Jay Laga’aia).
I
am not an expert in vampire lore, and confess to being more than a tad
squeamish, so for me there was just a little too much bloodlust to make
this my perfect cinematic outing. The story idea is quite a good one
though, stylishly delivered, and getting Sam Neill as an bad vampire
was a nice wee treat.
Three Stars.
Daybreakers
:: Directors: Michael Spierig & Peter Spierig
::
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill, Isabel
Lucas, Jay Laga'aia, Vince Colosimo
:: Running Time: 117 mins
:: Rating: R16 - Contains Violence, Offensive Language & Horror
:: Release Date: April 15, 2010
::
Official Site: Click here
