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Daybreakers
Jul. 11th, 2022 11:11 pmI watched this movie just a week ago, and I am kind of enamoured with it? I love vampire stories, but I did not expect it to take up residence in my head like this.
I'm late to the party, so we've already blown past the science fiction future of this movie. Made in 2009, and set in 2019, after a worldwide plague (!!) has transformed the majority of the population into vampires. Humans are on the brink of extinction, either farmed for blood or hunted as fugitives. And if humans die out, that's bad news for everyone. Vampirism is always symbolic of something. Here, according to one reviewer, it's a metaphor for late stage capitalism and rampant resource consumption.
Edward (played by Ethan Hawke) is a vampire haematologist, desperately researching a blood substitute, when he runs across a human resistance group with an answer that could change everything. Edward is one of my favourite character types: beautifully angsty, but with an edge. He didn't want to become a vampire! He's working to change things even while he's working for The Man! In the course of the movie, he gets whumped a lot. He suffers very prettily, but he also has a steely core of resolve.
It's also entertaining to see Sam Neill play a bad guy (the ruthless vampire CEO) and Willem Dafoe play a good guy (one of the human resistance leaders). And it's always great to see Claudia Karvan being excellent (as another human resistance leader). Turns out this was filmed in Australia, as an Australian and United States co-production, and a lot of Australian and New Zealand actors show up in it.
The running time is a sleek 94 minutes: tightly scripted, beautifully paced, not a beat wasted. More movies need to learn this. The aesthetic is gorgeous, lots of blue light for the cold vampire world and gold light for the warm human world. I love the blend of futuristic technology and classic noir.
Some of the scenes, though, are very bloody and gory. I usually have a low tolerance for this, but they're so cartoonish it wasn't that disturbing to me? And they're pretty well telegraphed, like, "Hmmmm, I'm getting a bad feeling about where this is going... Oh no. Oh dear."
The science is kind of implausible, and some of the action is kind of ridiculous. But I'm not here for your earth logic, I'm here for rule of cool and all the feelings.
If you would like to experience this movie in three minutes, I recommend checking out mithborien's excellent vid. (Note: Contains spoilers and gore.)
VID: Me & Lazarus (40 words) by mithborien
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Daybreakers (2009)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Additional Tags: Fanvids
Summary: Movie recap (most uninspired summary ever)
I'm late to the party, so we've already blown past the science fiction future of this movie. Made in 2009, and set in 2019, after a worldwide plague (!!) has transformed the majority of the population into vampires. Humans are on the brink of extinction, either farmed for blood or hunted as fugitives. And if humans die out, that's bad news for everyone. Vampirism is always symbolic of something. Here, according to one reviewer, it's a metaphor for late stage capitalism and rampant resource consumption.
Edward (played by Ethan Hawke) is a vampire haematologist, desperately researching a blood substitute, when he runs across a human resistance group with an answer that could change everything. Edward is one of my favourite character types: beautifully angsty, but with an edge. He didn't want to become a vampire! He's working to change things even while he's working for The Man! In the course of the movie, he gets whumped a lot. He suffers very prettily, but he also has a steely core of resolve.
It's also entertaining to see Sam Neill play a bad guy (the ruthless vampire CEO) and Willem Dafoe play a good guy (one of the human resistance leaders). And it's always great to see Claudia Karvan being excellent (as another human resistance leader). Turns out this was filmed in Australia, as an Australian and United States co-production, and a lot of Australian and New Zealand actors show up in it.
The running time is a sleek 94 minutes: tightly scripted, beautifully paced, not a beat wasted. More movies need to learn this. The aesthetic is gorgeous, lots of blue light for the cold vampire world and gold light for the warm human world. I love the blend of futuristic technology and classic noir.
Some of the scenes, though, are very bloody and gory. I usually have a low tolerance for this, but they're so cartoonish it wasn't that disturbing to me? And they're pretty well telegraphed, like, "Hmmmm, I'm getting a bad feeling about where this is going... Oh no. Oh dear."
The science is kind of implausible, and some of the action is kind of ridiculous. But I'm not here for your earth logic, I'm here for rule of cool and all the feelings.
If you would like to experience this movie in three minutes, I recommend checking out mithborien's excellent vid. (Note: Contains spoilers and gore.)
VID: Me & Lazarus (40 words) by mithborien
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Daybreakers (2009)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Additional Tags: Fanvids
Summary: Movie recap (most uninspired summary ever)
