Review of Daybreakers (2010) by James S — 07 Jun 2013

Daybreakers is what happens when someone gets a new idea, or spin, on a currently trendy theme but doesn't stop to question whether or not that idea is actually going to be interesting.

Getting a vampire movie green lit in the last few years must have been child's play. Although they're now being elbowed aside by the much more boring zombie genre, a couple of years back any fang related film spelled some sort of return for the studio. Daybreakers might just have been the moment when the tide began to turn.

Set in a world where the human race is all but extinct and vampirism has become a normal way of life, the vamps are facing the unique problem of blood supplies running low. It's an interesting idea that few films have taken the vampire theme to such a far reaching extent. It doesn't however make for a very good film.

Ethan Hawke is working on a blood substitute to sustain his kind when he gets involved with some surviving humans before making some startling discoveries about what the cure for vampirism may be. Without giving it away, I will tell you that it is extremely boring.

Everything about Daybreakers feels tired and worn out. Lines are delivered in the slowest, most tedious manner possible and the film doesn't seem at all bothered that it's haemorrhaging audience interest by the second.

Sam Neill and Ethan Hawke are both fine actors when given the right material. Neill here wears an expression throughout which seems to say "What am I doing in this film?" Willam Dafoe is in the film too. That's about all I've got to say about him though.

A couple of chase scenes are squeezed in to try and up the energy but Daybreakers is a complete lost cause. The following day it's hard to remember a great deal about it. Some films are so bad that they seer themselves into your consciousness with anger and fury at how terrible a time it was watching them. Daybreakers doesn't even manage to do that. It can't even be bothered to be memorably awful, it's just awful.