Movie review: The Daybreakers suck

when a writer is tired

The Daybreaker has a strong cast. A good idea. Some political pun. And then the plot goes wrong. Sad when you think of it, the problems in this narration were not necessary, they stem from a writer’s ‘easy way out’. It does have a lot of blood though, and intestines flying around. That is good. And Ethan Hawke without reflection in the mirror. Also good.

act 2.75

Let us work our way through this step by step. First there’s the basic idea of the movie: ‘A world where vampires have ‘won’’. A rather nice, rather original idea. It lets the mind wonder ‘… what if’. That first step automatically generates an arena that will be fun to look at; vampires everywhere, with their teeth and their hair and their snarly glances. Next step, general source of conflict - they run out of blood. The vampires ate us. They farmed us and now we’re almost extinct - uh oh. And then you have a main character through whom the premise of movie is told. In this case: Ethan Hawke doing the insecure-but-in-the-end-not Ethan Hawke thing, a vampire who doesn’t want to be a vampire any more - Vampire Ed. Ed is a brilliant hematologist trying to find a substitute for human blood; failing at it.

Nothing wrong so far. Now we will ride the movie and look around. On the right we have Sam Neill being evil. He’s good at that. On the left Willem Dafoe giving the rememberable one-liners. He is good at that. In the middle Ethan being insecure. And he is good at that. Just lean back and enjoy. There is a good amount of gore, vampires degenerating for lack of blood supply. Some visual tricks. Sam has a daughter who never ‘turned’, could be fun. Ed has a brother Frank who hunts humans, Frank the Human Slayer, opposing soft and tender Ed. Good. Now we have to ignite the plot.

Everything starts with an accident, Ed is looking at his ear in the rear view mirror of his car, not paying attention to where the car is going, when he hits a minivan filled with humans who he saves from the police. Ed and the humans go their own way. But, Audrey, one of those crossbowed things with a pulse got Eds address and comes back. She needs Ed. The human race needs Ed. Audrey introduced Ed to Elvis (Willem Dafoe) and a whole group of humans trying to survive. Frank the Human Slayer follows Ed, drama drama drama, Ed goes with the humans and is now more or less also a wanted vampire.

Still everything is going pretty splendid - nice twist on the genre, okay acting, not too good but okido action scenes and a coincidence that starts everything off. So far so good. As attentive reader you will expect by now, this does not end well for The Daybreakers.

First crack comes with Sam’s daughter. His daughter ‘happens’ to be meet the same group of humans Ed is going to go with. She ends up in her fathers hands who can be extra super evil. Sam Neill does not need her to be evil. The story does not need her. But, she is convenient, giving the writers easy ways out for some more difficult plot turns. In fact her insignificant little self fires of All big decisions in the end: 1) she makes daddy more evil, 2) Frank ‘turns’ her, sees what he has done and regrets everything, 3) Ed uses the memory of the daughter to get bitten by Sam in the end. All these really important plot moments are carried through a far a way character while they could have been solved within the main character group.

The daughter is a symptom of a writer looking for easy solutions. There is more though. Remember that Ed is a hematologist trying to find a a blood substitute? It gets better for him as Audrey and Elvis present Ed with a way to turn back. It is something that happened to Elvis by accident, he was launched out of his car in daylight, burned, but landed in water. Voila! Human again! So now Ed and Audrey and Elvis start investigating to use the sun in a controlled environment. They succeed. And. Yay! Ed is human too. There is nothing too it so it seems. After the burning, Ed is not even dizzy. It just is done. Everybody is happy. Me too. I like the idea and the fact that Ed is not suffering one little bit from the change, oh well, just play along, it is a movie. So now, how are they, while they are still hunted, going to spread the sun-cure?

Not! Because within 5 minutes not only Ed’s former boss Charles Bromley has found the substitute Ed has been looking for for years (on this same day, what a coincidence) and Ed, Elvis and Frank the Human Slayer in Regret find another cure! Yes! How about that! So the thing I have been looking at, the basic problem is solved three ways within five minutes without using the plot-so-far (the second cure is a surprise and the substitute was no topic in act 2). That sucks.

So we dive into act 3, finish everything off quickly and call it a day. Or as the vampires would say ‘night’. 

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The Daybreakers should have tried harder to solve the plot within the four main characters and with only one solution for the basic conflict. With this script it would even have been pretty easy actually. They didn’t. I don’t know why.

Bas

SCRIPT 'THE DAYBREAKERS'