Slashing The Seats

What better way to avoid the UK Snow than a a trip to the local googleplex you might think. Unfortunately something hits you pretty quickly as you glance through the now playing listings –yep, pretty much every film out this January is designed to send a shiver – either of horror or of boredom – down your spine, and Vampire Actioner Daybreakers is a trite case in point.

Etahn Hawke –who has an academy award nom remember – should really know better once the blue filters come out, but on paper this sounds amazing. Willem DaFoe with a crossbow, Sam Neill as a villainous bloodsucker, and poor, flat-faced Ethan caught in the middle as a human-sympathising vampire in a world ruled by the nosferatu.

Sounds like it’s got it all doesn’t it? Matrix/Blade action and corporate commentary mixed up with 28 Days Later/I Am Legend vampire-virus action. Make no mistake, the movie tries desperately to build a cult following, and if I were a dorky 15 year old I’d be taking style tips all the way through.

Unfortunately I’m not, which means that I spend the whole time rolling my eyes as one blatant plot point after another is sent in by smoke signal, yet still fails to cover the overly CGI-reliant action scenes that we’ve seen a million times before.

Mr.Hawke plays Edward –it is now a contractual obligation that all vampires are called Edward – the son of mad CEO Charles Bromsley ( A wide-eyed Neill, dredging up memories of his superlative nutjobbery from In The Mouth Of Madness) a vamp who’s made his money farming the last few humans for their haemoglobin and flogging it to starving undead outside. Unfortunately it isn’t a permanent solution, and when Hawke’s investigations into synthetic blood yeild a cure for Vampiritis, it’s a perfect excuse for lots of running around, a collection of too-good-for-this actors bellowing sub-Tarantino dialogue in an effort to be cool, in between doing slow motion back flips.

If you can ignore the creaking style, there’s some fun to be had here –the fleeting glances at a population hiding out in light-proofed houses as part of a functioning Vampire society deserves way more time, but the whole thing is so carried away with making loud noises and begging for a series of never-ending, Underworld-esque sequels that it never really gets going, the resolution feeling like an afterthought rather than the promised final battle.

Overall this looks and feels like a TV show, with non regional-specific US accents and Australian cities. It might have a lot of bang, but definitely lacks bite.

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