Now I admit, I went into “Daybreakers” with ridiculous expectations. I saw the trailer to this movie many months ago, and thought it looked like it could possibly be one of the greatest movies ever. Finally a vampire movie in which the vampires actually like drinking human blood, and burn in the sun. After utter shit such as “Twilight” filling cinemas with moron teenage girls who want Robert Pattinson to bite them (or drink their menstrual blood as I read one fan asked him to do.... what the fuck is wrong with these people?), a REAL vampire movie sounded highly appealing. Either way, my basic thoughts on “Daybreakers” was that it was good, but not fantastic.
In case you haven’t seen the trailer (Which you should immediately because in my opinion it is actually better than the movie itself), “Daybreakers” is based in the year 2019, in which the majority of the population has been turned into vampires. Due to this, blood supplies are running low, and the main character is working on creating either a blood substitute, or a cure for vampirism. Yes, I know, it’s basically political propaganda on a stick, just replacing either ‘water’, ‘oil’, ‘timber’, or ‘any other unrenewable resource’ with blood.
All that aside it originally appears to be a highly intelligent movie. The opening scene (in my opinion) is fantastic. I won’t ruin it of course, as it needs to be watched. It puts a twist on vampirism that I would assume very few people would have thought about, and it increased my hopes of the movie being incredible. But as it goes on, the intelligence wavers, and eventually it becomes an overly gory blood bath. Now for the record, sometimes I don’t mind those, I quite enjoy the final destination movies for example. But at no time when you watch them do you think they are going to be intelligent, you watch them for blood. I wasn’t watching “Daybreakers” for blood, hence the annoyance.
I have to admit, I thoroughly enjoyed watching Sam Neill as a creepy soulless corporate vampire. And after her the dreadful character she played in Transformers 2 (which was a fucking travesty), Isabel Lucas has redeemed herself in my eyes with this role. Ethan Hawke is great as the lead, and Willem Dafoe amused me immensely with some really random, often fucked up, dialogue.
I’m not sure if my expectations were too high, or if it really wasn’t as exciting as it should have been, but either way, “Daybreakers” disappointed me. It tried so hard for the first half to sell itself as an intelligent movie, and then filled itself with a tonne of violence in the second half. By all means go and watch it, especially if your brain has been raped by “Twilight” and needs a decent reminder of what a vampire is as opposed to a sparkly stalkerish fucktard. But don’t, as I did, expect it to be a masterpiece.
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hmmmm... I hate it when that happens, the whole trailer being better than the movie thing. I have learnt to recognise what at first might SEEM like a good movie-trailer (but is actually a good trailer to a terrible movie) and those random trailers which kind-of spark your interest but don't seem that good (and are actually trailers to awesome movies). I can't say that I would have watched Daybreakers (not a huge fan of vampires/mindless killing) but after reading your review I might give it a look. I like the idea of it... vampire movies can be so predictable, but this seems to have a hint of sci-fi, so it sounds interesting... is the blood and gore bit THAT bad???
ReplyDeleteThere is a fair bit of sci-fi to it. It isn't too gory, but it just has enough to take away from the seemingly intelligent basis (in my opinion anyway). And I didn't find it predictable, it was quite well done, so that was a shock. And I'm still a sucker for a good trailer, they suck me into a cinema in an instant, no matter how many times I get burned because of it.
ReplyDeletehahaha i know right :P but only because you love movies so much!! Actually, best cinema experience would have to be either in the middle of the day or the middle of the night, sitting in the centre of the mid-back of a huge empty cinema with really comfy chairs. Don't you think?
ReplyDeleteLol, yeh, I think I like movies a bit too much, I collect my tickets so I know that I've watched in excess of 500 movies in the last 4 years :O. And middle of the night is my favourite time, and always about 4 rows from the back, dead centre. But it depends on the movie as to whether it should be empty. Comedies I prefer a full-ish cinema, whereas pyschological thrillers (such as mirrors) need an empty cinema. That freaked me out the first time i saw it, yet when I watched it on dvd i found it pathetic :S. (And also, I was happy to see paranormal activity in a half full cinema, to see all the reactions of people who agreed with me that it was terrible)
ReplyDeletewow! 500! Haha I collect my movie tickets too :D I used to pin them all up on my pinup board with little comments about random things like who I saw them with, where I saw them or whether or not they were terrible. I've had a fantastic cinematic education this year (travelling tends to do that to you) so I've watched plenty of movies in lots of very different cinemas at random times (but never in the middle of the night, coincidentally - I do think that would be cool though... for some reason I've always wanted to go to one of those cinemas where they show random old movies and watch one of those at midnight...) and I am pretty much decided that I hate full cinemas. I love going to premieres and being in the hub of things, but full cinemas are annoying, if you want a true cinematic experience. They are only good for crappy movies, then you can focus on all the weird and wacky things that other people get up to when they think no-one else is watching (seriously... creepy).
ReplyDeleteBUT if you're in an emotional mood (I have, at times, been known to get in emotional moods) then it's always best to sit down and watch a really sad yet beautiful (or only mildly sad - the mood makes it seem worse) movie with great cinematography in an empty cinema. That way you can cry your way through the whole thing and nobody will look at you strangely as you sit there on your own crying while watching a mildly boring (you realise later) movie in the middle of the day :)
Well, I've seen movies at basically every time of the day. I've been in movies till 4 am in the morning lol. I only recently went to my first premiere (which was up in the air). And I used to do that with my tickets, write about who I went with and other info.
ReplyDeleteBut sometimes to get the full effect of the movie there has to be a few people in there (such as when I saw The boy in striped pyjamas and the emotion in the room was incredible).
mmm yeah i get that... that was a great movie by the way, did you enjoy it?
ReplyDeleteI loved it immensely. It was the most I've ever been emotionally moved by a movie (Which for the record, NEVER happens lol)
ReplyDeleteYesssss...I thought the trailer for this looked awesome but I was scared to see it in case it was another load of wank and Isobel Lucas being in it didn't help my feelings of apprehension.
ReplyDeleteThink I may have to check it out now but I'll probably end up waiting till the DVD release. Finding it hard to hit the cinema in between work and Bayley.