So the vampire thing is still going strong, for better and for worse. Along with the Twilight movies, recent years have seen such diverse fare as Sweden's Let the Right One In (rating: 46), Will Smith's I Am Legend (rating: 70), and of course the HBO show True Blood. It's kind of astonishing that there's room for one more decent vampire flick. The key to Daybreakers is its ultra-sleek style -- it imagines a world 10 years in the future when vampires have taken over society, and the sleek contours of every building and interior provide an elegant contrast to the movie's shocking gore. This is a real horror movie, and one of the best I've seen in a while.
The basic plot is about what you'd expect, as an unhappy vampire teams up with a rogue group of humans to try to discover a cure for vampirism. Fortunately, the Spierig brothers, who directed, are much more preoccupied with the how than the why. The movie starts out almost as a silent film, running for several minutes of establishing shots and opening sequence before the first line of dialogue. And that's generally best for a movie starring Ethan Hawke, an actor who's always been more expressive with his mopey face than with his fairly monotone acting. Predictably, Sam Neill and Willem Dafoe liven up their roles as the chief vampire and the chief human, respectably. But ultimately, neither the story nor the characters are all that compelling, in the scheme of things. It's the visuals.
Early reviews of the movie have been decidedly mixed -- a 58 score on Metacritic -- with most of the criticism characterizing the movie as overly slick, style over substance, and derivative. Of course, translated, that means is that it's gorgeous and steals from a successful formula. It's a $20 million movie made in Australia with visual effects and flair far above its modest budget, whose ambition is wholly tied to its appearance. On that front, it succeeds completely. It's the kind of slick genre movie -- a B-movie -- that Robert Rodriguez fetishized in the Planet Terror (rating: 94) half of Grindhouse, or that John Carpenter perfected in the '80s (Assault on Precinct 13, rating: 80; Escape from New York, rating: 83; Big Trouble in Little China, rating: 89; They Live, rating: 79). It's a movie that's just fun.
Rating: 74Crossposted on Remingtonstein.
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But their films had content, such as 'The Conformist.'
The gazillions spent now on CGI and sets can buy anyone "sleek", but without substance, we are left with DESIGNER PORN.
But their film's had content, like THE CONFORMIST.
So, sleek films about little of nothing leaves us with less than DESIGNER PORN.
My skepticism is increases when a discussion of recent vampire films neglects Park Chan-Wook's astonishing "Thirst," which disturbed even a jaded old horror film buff like myself. It's a testament to Park's inventiveness as a director that critics are praising a film that everyone agrees is overly long and lacks rhythm in its plotting. It's so relentlessly creepy that you ultimately don't notice its few flaws.
Both of these movies succeed not because of visuals and not because of slickness, but because they feature fascinating, twisted story lines acted out by competent, convincing actors. Their scenes of violence and gore are meted out judiciously, so that when they do come they truly shock. These are not "fun" films in the least. They are horror films, and they will scare you, and force you to think about them long after they're over.
"Daybreakers" is truly a throw-away in comparison, a "horror" film that fails utterly to horrify. The eye candy simply cannot compensate for the wisp of a plot and leaden acting. It's all show and no go, sort of like "Van Helsing" but without the hilarious accents and crackpot comic bits. It's instantly forgettable.
Nevertheless, what a great great movie.
Dire miscasting. Cheesy lines. Worse action. 2/10
You probably get a 72, Al.
Daybreakers is much, much more related to Blade than to Buffy. It's set in a techno-future in which vampire society has evolved past human society. In Blade, vampire and human societies effectively coexist on top of one another, but the vamps nonetheless seem to have cooler tech than we do. Most importantly, both Daybreakers and Blade (and True Blood) involve the search for a synthetic substitute for human blood, whereas in Buffy (and in Twilight) vampires are perfectly capable of drinking animal blood rather than human blood.
Like I say, it's a wide open genre. It's nice that there was room for one more good movie.