Daybreakers

Film: Daybreakers
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill, Claudia Karvan
Genre: Sci-Fi
Direction: Michael and Peter Spiereg
Duration: 1 hour 38 minutes
Critic's Rating: 3 stars


Story: It's 2019. A global epidemic has reduced humans to an endangered species and the world seems to be brimming over with vampires who are hunting them down for their precious blood. Who will win the war for plasma? Seems the vampires will, unless Ethan Hawke, a haematologist, finds a solution to the global crisis. He does, by developing a substitute for blood, but not before a bloody battle for survival.

Movie Review: Vampires again. Only this time, it ain't the handsome teen mutant Twilighters (Robert Pattinson and co.) who are quite welcome with their blood-lusting fangs. Here, the vampires are a bunch of nasty snarlers who brutally pounce on the handful of humans left in this grim-dim scenario and then indulge in some lip-smacking, blood-dripping drama, even as the endangered human race cries out for a saviour.

So, who's the messiah going to be this time round? Dr Ed Dalton (Ethan Hawke) is the man of the moment. Doesn't matter if he himself is a vampire, because he is a vegetarian blood-sucker, feasting only on animal blood. He develops synthetic blood which has magical powers. It allows humans to survive and vampires who feed on them, to perish. But the benevolent doctor cannot re-build the human race without the help of the crossbow-wielding Elvis (Willem Dafoe) who has his own gory vampire history.

This one's for those who still haven't had their fill of vampire lore which happens to be the current craze in Hollywood and those who like their vampires mostly mean and monster-like.