Opening Day: 14 January 2010

Synopsis:

The year is 2019. A mysterious plague has swept over the earth, transforming the majority of the world's population into vampires. Humans are now an endangered, second-class species – forced into hiding as they are hunted and farmed for vampire consumption to the brink of extinction.

It’s all up to Edward Dalton, a vampire researcher who refuses to feed on human blood, to perfect a blood substitute that might sustain vampires and spare the few remaining humans. But time and hope are running out – until Ed meets Audrey, a human survivor who leads him to a startling medical breakthrough. Armed with knowledge that both humans and vampires will kill for, Ed must battle his own kind in a deadly struggle that will decide the fate of the human race.

Movie Review:

In the usual setting for a vampire flick, the bloodthirsty creatures are often a threat to humanity and the heroes are often called to prevent such calamity from happening. Daybreakers presents a "what if" scenario that the vampires had won that war and humans became the minority. The vampires have became the norm of society and humans are farmed for their blood (the same way human are farmed as battery for the machine in The Matrix). The interesting premise allowed the Spierig Brothers to explore and expose various underlying issues in human society in the midst of an action and special effects laden movie.

One of the most interesting issue presented here dealt with the extend of corporate greediness and our unhealthy consumerism habits. It touches on corporate objective for profit and power that it make one realized that they would be more than willing to sacrifice the greater good if it is not able to churn out monetary rewards for them. The vampire nation's reliance on human blood bank also invokes the realism to our dependence on oil. With a seemly finite amount of resources, it makes one wonder why aren't we more aggressive in pursing an alternative solution? It also begs to ask the question if the corporate bigwigs would seek out this simple and better alternative if it would means that it cuts into their share of profit or an end to their business? Sadly, it's a bleak scenario and anyone with an firm understanding of human psychology would be able to guess how it would play out.

Another interesting issue that was brought out in Daybreakers would be the Sub-siders. Due to the general lack of food for the vampire population, a new breed of vampires emerges and caused havoc to the vampire nation. They were socially outcast and hunted as a menace to the society. The normal vampires failed to see the links that bind these two species and it invokes the irony of discrimination (which again could served as metaphor for racial discrimination).

However, the Spierig Brothers lack the special storyteller touch to bring all those issues into fruition. Those two issues mention above were not thoroughly examined and explored. These issues served as an device to showcase what's wrong with the vampire nation and there's hardly any engaging materials to emote the viewers to feel what's wrong with such a situation. The directors who wrote the story also failed to build up a story that makes the characters engaging enough for us to feel for their climatic sacrifice at the end.

It's kinda of a pity as there's great visual to set the mood of this film, a good looking Ethan Hawke that sizzle up the screen with his brooding moody looks and Willem Dafoe hamming it up as an ex vampire with a devil might care attitude. Daybreakers had quite a few things going for it and yet sadly in the end, it just plays out like another formulaic Hollywood movie, beautiful to look at but ultimately soulless inside.

Movie Rating:



(Intriguing concepts that's filled with potential but the deal breaker lies in it's execution)

Review by Richard Lim Jr