DAYBREAKERS (2009): Ethan Hawke and Isabel Lucas Sport Fangs for Sport
May 9th 2010 09:33
Category: No Category
It's a vamp eat vamp world: a weary Ethan Hawke in Daybreakers (2009)
Human resitance member Audrey (Claudia Karvan) leads Edward to Elvis (Willem Dafoe, Shadow of the Vampire, Cirque du Freak), who has discovered a cure for vampirism and wants Edward to replicate it. Edward works for Charles Bromley (Sam Neill in a role which allows him to replay his lamb-meat lovers adverts) head of a pharmaceuticals corporation whom vampirism saved from a terminal disease. As an evil corporate-monger he is however more interested in repeat business rather than in solving the problem and his estranged daughter Alison (Isabel Lucas, reprising her role from Transformers 2 and going from beauty to beast in record time) rejected him after he chose to be turned. Edward has a soldier brother Frankie (Michael Dorman) whose views directly oppose his own (think Stefan vs. Damon Salvatore in The Vampire Diaries), and despite a pea-sized brain manages to cause major trouble. In the end it all comes down to good old family issues.
Michael Dorman as trouble-maker Frankie in Daybreakers (2009)
This blood splatter of a brain child is courtesy of Michael and Peter Spierig, twin brothers and director/producers of the Australian-shot feature. Their previous effort includes indie zombie horror Undead (2003) and zombies are always on the Spierigs' minds it seems, so here we are introduced to a sub-class of "subsiders" - vamps who are too poor to obtain the real thing and resort to cannibalism and self-mutilation which gives them - you guessed it! - wings...Intricacies of the plot are not one of the horror genre's strengths, but Daybreakers feature stylish and suitably dark cinematography and video game splatter aesthetics for gore amateurs, but dont expect any chills to run down your spine.
A pretty young subsider vampire in Daybreakers (2009)
Hawke, playing another crumpled beautiful soul, unfortunately doesn't have much to do here, neither does the rest of the cast. The underlying critique of contemporary boxed-up lifestyle, oil wars, depletion of food resources, corporations running amok for profit, etc. produces a rather yada yada yada effect.
Isabel Lucas, very briefly pretty in Daybreakers (2009)
More importantly, is naming your vampires Edward becoming a disturbing trend? Borrowing themes from contemporary youth culture obsessed with vampires appears to be a sure thing to score at the box office: there are digs at Twilight (a vampire named Edward as the hero), True Blood (aiming to invent synthetic blood and showcasing vampires as an integrated part of society) and The Vampire Diaries (vampire brothers tormenting each other). I am sure you can find more if you can be bothered. Oh, and there are some neat shots of humans being harvested for their blood similar to the process shown in The Matrix, where robots were using humans as lightbulbs. Daybreakers is a guilty pleasure that manages to score below all of its inspirations. That said, all vampbangers out there have yet another body of cinematic work to feast on. The resourceful Aussie twin dynamic duo is rumoured to direct the long-awaited sequel to cult-classic fantasy The Dark Crystal - watch out for alien/vampire/zombie plot twists and...puppets? Surely that won't suck.
Review by Patricia Bieszk
© Copyright P. Bieszk 2010
| 90 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
