Review: Daybreakers

Daybreakers, 98 minutes

I wonder if the makers of Daybreakers asked Stephanie Meyer very nicely if they could borrow an Edward Cullen template for an hour and a half. I was looking forward to escaping the glittery-fairy-fest that is Twilight when I went to see this film, but after realising the protagonist is called Edward, he’s too much of a sensitive soul to drink human blood, and there’s even a blank slate of a brunette for him to fall for, alarm bells were ringing louder than the film’s overblown soundtrack.

Daybreakers is set in 2019 when almost everyone is a vampire and the blood supply is about to run dry. Since starved vamps turn into sub-siders, creatures that look rougher than a burns unit in Norfolk, it’s pretty important to find something else to sustain them. Edward (Ethan Hawke) is a scientist working for corporate big shot Bromley (Sam Neill), who runs into humans Elvis (Willem Defoe) and Audrey. When they reveal a cure for vampiricism, Edward turns guinea pig and together they go after the big bad Bromley. Since explaining the numerous subplots would take me as long as a bloodsucker’s lifespan, I wont bother.

As I mentioned, Edward has a bit in common with Twilight’s Cullen, already a bad sign. More than that, despite apparently being the hero, Hawke spends the film looking as ineffectual and bewildered as a pensioner on Facebook. True, Hawke’s lumbered with a character who seems destined to be a drip, but his impression of a comatose Keanu Reeves doesn’t help matters. Perhaps aptly, everything about Edward seems a bit lifeless – even when he’s on fire, his shouts are more akin to stubbing your toe than your flesh being on fire.

Alison (Bromley’s teenage daughter) and Audrey, the only female characters, aren’t much better. Alison is such a stereotype you’re just waiting for her to shout ‘nobody understands me!’ and slam the door, whilst Audrey seems to be there just so there’s a human Edward actually would be interested in eating.

It’s not all awful though – Neill and Defoe offer glimpses of horror and humour respectively. Neill is unnervingly slimy, the only genuinely scary vampire you see and has a brilliantly low growl of a voice, like he’s sandpapered his larynx between takes. Defoe, as a crossbow-toting hick with a swagger is given what little (intentional) humour the film has, commenting ‘being human in a world of vampires is as safe as bare backing a five dollar whore’. Shakespeare it certainly ain’t, but at least these two turn in decent performances.

As I implied earlier, the sound effects have all the subtlety and sophistication of a child playing with ‘Baby’s First Soundtrack’ and the CGI is on a par with Doctor Who, which wouldn’t be so bad if the makers didn’t insist on close ups of the shoddy effects. When Elvis describes being on fire as feeling ‘like a piece of goddamn fried chicken’, he’s closer to the truth than he should be.

The big problem is that this film tries to do too much, with enough plots for a year of Eastenders episodes and even more subplots to boot. Is it about dwindling natural resources? Corporate evil? Addiction? (Hawke smokes like an industrial chimney right up until he’s made human) It doesn’t have the self control it so desperately needs – a nearly good car chase, with Edward trying to avoid the sunlight as enemy bullets riddle his car with holes, is ruined by the inclusion of a cliché rickety bridge and gratuitous vehicle explosion towards the end. It wants to give us action, gore, romance, pathos as well as social commentary, which, much like the human all-you-can-eat-buffet at the end of the film, just results in an absolute bloody mess.