Daybreakers: Critic Reviews

It's like Children of Men with exploding-plasma shock effects. The best thing you can say about the movie is that it pours some very old blood into a new plastic bottle.

The narrative may flag, but the doomsday atmosphere and George Liddlea(TM)s production design remain vivid until the final, blood-splattered reel.

The Spierigs make some nice metaphysical points and commission some spiffy design, but resort to less-than-blood-heat thriller moves in the final third. Still very watchable, though.

It is a happy alternative to the tepid appeal of pre-teen vamps and werewolves. But why make a vampire movie lacking the allure of the enticing fiends?

In the end, Daybreakers doesn't really want to make anyone think too hard. If that were to happen, they might stop to wonder why all the human survivors out there hiding in fear of their lives don't just become garlic farmers and call it a day.

Just when you think popular culture has exhausted all the metaphorical and allegorical possibilities, the film unifies all the usual tropes (bloodlust, heliophobia, fangs) into a complete science fiction whole.

Wearisome "Ain't it cool?" video-game splatter-violence is all that's memorable of the action, while a (mixed) metaphorical subtext of conservationism can't save a text that squanders its actors.

Despite the Spierig brothers' punchy visual style and satiric tone, Daybreakers eventually devolves, though Dafoe and his Southern drawl goose things up and Hawke has a greasy romanticism.

Daybreakers finally comes up with some comments on the predatory practices of Big Pharma, but that's an awful comedown from the blood-rushing brilliance of the early scenes.

This intriguing premise, alas, ends as so many movies do these days, with fierce fights and bloodshed. Inevitably, the future of the planet will be settled among the handful of characters we've met, and a lot of extras with machineguns.

Peter and Michael Spierig's earlier, campier horror outing, the zombie picture known as Undead, was even bloodier than this one. The movie-makers are after bigger game here, and a subtler mixture of speculative nightmare and action film.

Writer-directors Michael and Peter Spierig equip this unpretentious, low-budget, high-functioning shocker with some sharp satirical teeth, and Dafoe has a ball behind his Manson goatee.

It's undeniable fun to behold the likes of serious thespians Hawke and Dafoe slumming around in this cheeseball stuff.

Daybreakers isn't a great film, but it's a good one, and in a market oddly lousy with vampire tales, it's an original.

The script doesn't wring many surprises or much character involvement from the premise, and the brothers' helming, while slick, is short on scares, action setpieces and humor.

For the lowbrow, the thrill is a level of fleshy explosiveness reminiscent of David Cronenberg's Scanners. No one dies quietly; he must either detonate like Hiroshima or burst into juicy red chunks of viscera.

Daybreakers reminds us that from Twilight to Underworld, True Blood to The Vampire Diaries, this is one genre where supply has utterly overwhelmed demand.

Daybreakers has substance and smarts, plus lots of visual treats for the fanboys -- a mix to keep everybody happy.

Daybreakers is more fun than foreboding; it's fright-lite, yet that's par for the bloody course in these busy apocalyptic days.

Hawke gives his all here -- or maybe just half his all -- and it isn't quite enough: He's trying to be soulful, but he really just looks a little tired. The real delight is Willem Dafoe.

While the setting is sleek and filled with clever details, the story, in which one good vampire teams with a scrappy band of free-range humans to fight the power, is timeworn and predictable.

There are more revisionist bloodsucker stories out there than you can shake a stake at nowadays, and they're getting tiresome.

Highbrows will condescend to this movie like nobody's business. But there are a few of us left out there -- junkies for smart exploitation -- who will relish this stuff. You know who you are.

Even though I'm pretty much vampired out these days, I appreciated the grossout thrills and the B-movie dialogue.