Last Blog On The Left

Don´t you hate it when a new movie is released and you really, really wanna like it but the longer you watch it the sad realization that this movie just doesn´t cut it, creeps up on you? It´s a sad thing and the Spierig brothers has subjected me to that feeling twice now! Goddamn it, Spierig brothers, I´m a sensitive man and not just a machine that you turn off and on! I´ve invested time here and I was pretty heartbroken the first time I sat down to watch a movie of yours and now it´s happened again. The first time was when “Undead” was released back in 2003. I don´t know if you remember that one, it´s this low budget flick about how a meteorite crashes nearby an Australian fisher village and causes its inhabitants to run amok and turn into flesh eating zombies. The reason why I really, really wanted to like that one because it had a pretty spectacular poster: the lead character, wearing a hat that´s concealing his eyes, aiming a triple barreled shotgun! Nothing short of brilliant and a movie that has a poster like that has to be frickin´ amazing, right? Well, it wasn´t and I was kinda heartbroken for a while and stopped answering the phone, started hanging out with strangers in the park and so on. You know the drill, right? The usual story.

Now flash forward about seven years and we find ourselves in the present day and the Spierig brothers has released a new movie. I´m talking about the much anticipated “Daybreakers”, starring Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe. This time it´s not zombies that they´re tackling, but vampires. In case you hadn´t noticed, vampires are all the rage now thanks to that “Evening”-series about Edward and Bella. For taking seven fucking years to make their next film, their timing is pretty damn good, at least.

Here´s the set up: It´s 2019 and vampires make up the vast majority of the population with only 5% of the human race remaining. This presents particular challenges as the vampires’ food supply – human blood – is dwindling and rationing is now the norm. It also seems that vampires deprived of an adequate blood supply are themselves evolving into wild, vile creatures that attack anyone and anything in order to survive. Dr. Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke), a vampire and hematologist who works for a pharmaceutical firm, has been working on finding an artificial blood supply that will meet the vampire society’s needs. He is sympathetic to humans and sees his work as a way of alleviating their suffering but his views on finding a solution change considerably when he meets someone who found a way to transform himself from being a vampire to again take human form.

I think that this is a great idea for a vampire movie and pretty original: vampires rule the earth! It´s the kind of stuff that´s always hinted at in other movies and whenever the lead vampire does one of those speeches at the end of a movie where he reveals his plan for world domination, I can imagine that it´s a world much like this one they´re talking about.

I gotta admit that while describing this movie, I find myself thinking “Damn, this sounds pretty cool!” and I admire the Spierig brothers for their ambitions with this movie… But it just doesn´t quite gel together. The separate elements for a great movie are there, but they don´t fuse.

For instance, the movie looks pretty good although they could´ve skipped hiring the lighting designer from the “CSI”-shows. Whenever we´re in the vampire´s domain, everything is for some reason steel blue. I mean everything! Kind of like in the “CSI: New York”-show. And when Hawke´s character finds himself out on the countryside, it´s as if he wandered into the “Miami”-version. Let´s just say that it´s not too subtle.

I read a couple of reviews saying that this movie reminded them of a John Carpenter-movie, except for the fact that you know, it wasn´t directed by John Carpenter. I can sort of understand what they´re getting at. “Daybreakers” has an old fashioned feel to it and it takes its time in setting up the world, like I can imagine Carpenter would but that´s where the similarities end. And this is basically because of Ethan Hawke´s character.

You see, at the beginning he starts out as a pretty interesting character: he wears a trench coat (without masturbating publically, which has to be applauded) and a Fedora hat, so he´s got that whole 1940´s private eye thing going on, which is always cool in movies. Plus the fact that he also smokes! Without being the bad guy! Pretty sensational in this day and age but then again, this movie was made in Australia and I guess that good guys can still smoke over there. Anyway, about half into the movie (SPOILER!!!) Hawke´s character goes through a transformation and then suddenly he´s running around wearing a white puffy shirt and a black vest, looking like an extra from a Meat Loaf-video.

And this is where the movie goes wrong: with its protagonist. Say what you will about Ethan Hawke, he´s a fine actor and all that but that guy can´t portray a bad ass character, even if his life depended on it. And I´m pretty sure that if John Carpenter directed this movie, Ethan Hawke would´ve been shown the door the minute he entered the audition. And Willem Dafoe´s character (named Elvis, which is another Carpenter-connection because he directed “Elvis: The Movie” as some of you might remember) is shockingly bland, as well. He has all the attributes: world weary, a beard and a shotgun combined with a crossbow and if that doesn´t sound like something Carpenter would dream up, I don´t know what would. But he doesn´t get a single “bad ass moment” where we realize that “Shit, this guy is not to be messed with”.

And that sucks, to be frank! I mean, does anyone remember when Carpenter himself made a vampire movie? That´s when the world was blessed with the wonderfully politically incorrect “Vampires”, a movie filled to the brim with bad ass-ery and one liners so cynical and bad to the bone that the hair on your neck stood up every time James Woods spouted one of his lines. That´s what the Spierig brothers should´ve strived more for.

So that´s what they should´ve done: fired Ethan Hawke, hired Jason Statham instead to achieve just the right amount of bad ass-edness, called up John Carpenter said “Hi John! We´ve noticed that you haven´t directed a movie in a while and that kind of sucks. We´ve written a script called “Daybreakers” and have the financing all in place and we´re all good to go but we figured that you should direct it instead just because… well, you´re John Carpenter and we´re not!”and let him have his way with the movie. Then we would´ve had the great movie that everyone´s talking about and not this half assed vampire mess. Problem solved.

At least they gave good old Sam Neill a role.

Until next time: take scare!

Thomas