REVIEWED BY JONATHAN LEWIS:


DAYBREAKERS. Lionsgate, 2009. Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill, Claudia Karvan, Michael Dorman, Isabel Lucas. Screenwriter-directors: Michael & Peter Spierig.

   The Australian-American horror movie Daybreakers opens with an intriguing premise: what if there’s a catastrophic plague that transforms most of the human race into vampires, leaving humans an endangered species. The vampires live essentially like humans used to, driving cars and working in offices. They can’t go out in the sunlight, of course. Most importantly, they need a steady stream of human blood to survive. This poses a significant problem, seeing that humanity is slowly fading away into the dustbin of history.

   That’s why the people at Bromley Marks, a pharmaceutical company run by the nefarious Charles Bromley (Sam Neill) are desperately working on a blood substitute, a synthetic creation that would allow vampire society to thrive without human blood. Hematologist Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke), a “good vampire” who doesn’t drink human blood and even has sympathy for the humans, is passionate about the project. But he seems to have doubts about what Bromley’s true intentions are.

   When a chance encounters leads Dalton into the arms of an underground movement of humans, he decides he’s willing to risk everything in order to help build a different world than the one is living in. He begins a scientific project with ex-vampire Lionel “Elvis” Cormac (Willem Dafoe) who has seemingly done the impossible: he’s turned from human to vampire and back to human.

   This is where the movie’s captivating premise begins to fall apart. Dalton and Elvis learn that somehow quick exposure to the sunlight followed by oxygen deprivation allows vampires to regain their human status. Yet, some thirty minutes later in the movie, it turns out that the real cure to vampirism is for vampires to drink the blood of ex-vampires.

   Put outside the scientific absurdities for a moment. There’s no seemingly logical consistency here, let alone a plausible explanation as to why, in all the years that have seemingly passed since the plague, that no one else has discovered these cures. Just because something is “supernatural” doesn’t mean that writers should be able to seemingly make things up on the fly.

   In many ways, this failing is a true shame. Hawke and Neill are fine actors and both put in strong performances as the movie’s hero and villain respectively. And the movie is beautifully shot, giving it a “future noir” aesthetic that must be truly a sight to behold on the big screen. (I watched it on a DVD.) But the story really doesn’t hold together. Which is why I suspect the movie ended more with a graphic bloodbath than with a resolution of the key question plaguing the heart of the movie: what caused the vampire outbreak and how will it be reversed?