Vampires rule the world and humans are a dwindling resource in the action-packed Daybreakers.
As a viewer too old and too male to appreciate Twilight, I kind of stopped caring about vampire movies a couple of years ago, so when I sat down to watch Daybreakers I wasn't expecting anything new or interesting. At best, I was mildly looking forward to a splattery R-rated bit of monster movie escapism.
Well, hey. It turns out that Daybreakers not only excels as a visceral thrill ride, but it addresses issues of human greed and short-sightedness with rare skill and originality. This is definitely a film worth seeing.
The year is 2019, 10 years after the vampire plague that swept the world in 2009 (huh — must have missed that) and the new undead society has settled down to the point that it resembles our own world, except for the fact that almost everybody is a vampire. The streets are empty during the day, cars have tinted windows and blood is available in coffee shops. Almost all of the human population has been rounded up as livestock for the Matrix-like blood farms, and the Vamps are prosperous, civilized and content, rarely giving a thought to the very real problem that the world blood supply is running out.
Since any vampire can turn other humans into vampires, the plague enveloped the world very quickly. Lots of people turned their family members into vampires to keep them from becoming victims. Vampires have only been around for 10 years in this film, so everybody remembers being human. Everybody, that is, except for the monstrous “Subsisters,” vampires who have gone without blood for too long and who have lost their human traits entirely. These snarling beasts will be all that's left if something isn't done soon.
This might sound heavy, but it's all couched in a gleefully violent and action-packed genre structure. The vampires explode like fireworks when pierced by wooden stakes, so be prepared for lots of kaboom.
Ethan Hawke makes an excellent idealistic hero as Edward Dalton, a hematologist working on synthesizing a blood substitute to feed the vampire population and to free the human population. He's easy to root for, and the script overcomes the occasional flat note by sticking closely to its own established rules, giving us a thought-provoking look at a world overrun by predators, and nearly devoid of prey.
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