The directorial Spierig brothers offer a premise to sink your teeth into: In a world ruled by vampires, humans are on the verge of going extinct. A blood supplier (Sam Neill at his most deliciously evil) is developing a synthetic substitute (Tru Blood, maybe?), while a human resistance engages a befanged hematologist (Ethan Hawke) to help them come up with a cure for vampirism. Despite a cogent production design, Daybreakers stumbles with some awkward pacing and doesn’t offer a lot of depth beyond its set-up, but for genre fans the entertainment value is high. Keep your ears open for a key bit of dialogue from Willem Dafoe’s vampire hunter Elvis that has a good chance of being the best line uttered in any crossbow-laden, sci-fi/vampire picture this year.
This article appears in Jan 7-13, 2010.
