With films like Daybreakers, I’ve noticed a trend that they tend to take themselves too seriously.  Luckily Daybreakers realizes that it is silly and over the top.  Vampires are creatures that are no longer strictly for horror.  Since Joss Whedon’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Mel Brooks’ Dracula: Dead and Loving It, and the Blade trilogy vampires have successfully crossed over into comedy and action films.  Daybreakers is a clever conglomeration of both.

From the onset of the film, I was not sure whether or not this would be pretentious and unaware of its own ridiculousness.  It opens with a vampire using the sun to commit suicide.  The quick cuts, used to splice footage of sentences from her suicide note and the actual act of suicide, are so fast that it becomes funny.  I’m certain that this is intended to be taken seriously, but ironically sets the proper tone for the film whose concept is over the top.  Part of the reason that vampires are frightening is that they were mysterious.  But in Daybreakers that trope is impossible considering that the world is primarily inhabited by vampires.

I was surprised by Ethan Hawke.  The last movie I saw of his, in which I liked his performance, was The Dead Poet’s Society.  Unfortunately this actor is not suited for action hero roles.  Strangely this doesn’t stop him from being cast as the action hero type.  He has softer features, and personality than the traditional action star.  Hawke is well suited to play Edward Dalton in Daybreakers.  Dalton is a scientist.  He’s not intended to be a tough guy.  The action scenes in which he is involved allow for him to build the courage, and strength that a person in his position could build should he rise to the occasion.  He’s not a seasoned fighter, and he’s not supposed to be one.  That’s why it works.

The successful comedy in the film is driven by the absurdities of vampire society.  I can sum this up with two words:  vampire animals, specifically, but not limited to, a chimpanzee.  The unsuccessful comedy is most of Willem Dafoe’s dialogue.

Since Daybreakers isn’t strictly comedic, I have to mention the action scenes.  The action was successfully exciting, but usually felt sudden and forced into the film.  As Captain Logan said after we saw Daybreakers, the reason that the action scenes worked for the film was that the rules of the universe were used.  The car chases could have been simple chases scenes, but they managed to include the vampire mythos in the scenes.  Personally I think they should have spent more time on the subplot, than the largely forced action scenes.  The subplot was not ignored, but it wasn’t explored to the detailed scope to which it could have been explored.

Willem Dafoe’s characterization was the most disappointing aspect of the film.  Dafoe plays a good ol’ boy, and uses a barely convincing accent to match the intention.  It makes sense that his character would be a little country, but it plays into the stereotype of the grease monkey.  Dafoe would have used his own voice, and his performance would have been stronger for it.  Dafoe’s performance as Lionel ‘Elvis’ Cormac was adequate.  Although the film is largely successful in its creative endeavor, the blame for Dafoe’s character falls on the writer and director.  Cormac’s lines were intentionally comedic and were forced into the film like the action.  I think that at some point someone thought that the clever comedy in the film was not enough, and decided that they needed more blatantly presented humor.  It flows against the established tone, and wasn’t needed.  But then again, maybe the lines wouldn’t have been so problematic if Dafoe was allowed to be himself.

The Verdict:  I’ll give Daybreakers a 3 out of 5.  It has everything it needs to be funny and exciting, but it fell into the pitfalls of ignoring the potential of the subplot, and underestimating the worth of its own comedy.

Let’s be realistic.  This franchise achieves its popularity by appealing to the libidos of young to youngish females and cougars.  Of course I can’t judge them too harshly.  I’ve had several conversations with men whose major reason for liking the Transformers franchise is Megan Fox.  It’s as if people are willing to sit through an entire film, just to watch an attractive person be attractive.  Let me not mince my words.  That is not enough to make a good movie.  The most compelling thing these characters do is look attractive.  Beyond that, there’s very little to appreciate in New Moon.

The only good thing to say about the film is that it looks polished.  The movie was assembled into a body of work that looks like it was intended for wide release.

But even that aspect is riddled with flaws.  Judging from the way the movie is shot, it can’t decide whether it’s trying to be a music video or a commercial for jeans.  I didn’t mind this so much because it gives the audience a break from camera angles that are far too intimate.  Often times the camera shots  feature one character on screen and place the crown of that character’s head directly at the top of the frame and the character’s chin at the bottom.  Even during the few fight scenes the camera is placed equally as close on two characters that are ripping into each other.  The extreme motion featured in these shots make the image indiscernible from blurs with eyeballs.  It seems like they took the lazy route in the scene so that they didn’t have to choreograph the fight.

When I saw the first movie I dismissed the actors as being awful.  Then I saw Kristen Stewart in Adventuresland among other movies.  She has talent.  So I have to conclude that she’s not taking the material seriously.  Who can blamer her?  There’s no way to deliver the dialogue with a completely straight face.  Most of it is stereotyped and extremely overdramatic.  On occasion there’s a funny line that was intended to be funny, but mostly it’s funny unintentionally.  No character is rounded enough to have interesting dialogue.  In fact, the best lines and delivery comes from the secondary character Jessica (Anna Kendrick).

The film is way too long.  It is two hours and ten minutes.  The story doesn’t really begin until an hour into the film.  I’m not saying that the final hour and ten minutes don’t need a set up, but it could have been condensed into ten minutes.  I have to conclude that the writer thinks the plot points are people staring broodingly/listlessly into each other’s eyes.  There’s only one significant event that happened in the first hour.  Edward decides to leave Bella and his family because he loves her too much.  Again we see a stereotype, but it’s used a little differently in New Moon.  It doesn’t make sense.  Now that Bella has been introduced into the monster world, Edward should know that Bella would be in danger without protection. 

Edward refuses to turn Bella into a vampire for two good reasons.  Doing so would break the treaty with the werewolves, and it would also make Bella lose her soul.  Apparently it’s very difficult to kill a vampire, so what does it matter?  If she’s a vampire she will be immortal, and should learn to stay away from werewolves.  Treaty or no treaty, as long as she’s careful she will have a greater chance at survival and attaining her stereotypically broody sense of happiness.  It all leads to an attempted social message.  Despite it’s obviousness I wasn’t aware of it until Captain Logan pointed it out to me.  Edward refuses to turn Bella into a vampire until she marries him.  The bite of a vampire is symbolic of the act of sex, and has been hypersexualized in vampire films previous to this one.  So the big social message is that kids should wait until marriage to have sex/vampirism.  I suppose I should applaud the film for attempting to weave in a message, but the movie is so silly that it becomes a parody of what it was intended to be.  Even the message was stereotyped.  Therefore it could be said that it almost mocks its own message.

The Verdict:  There are more problems than what I’ve outlined in this review, but for the sake of economy and sanity, I’ll let it end here.  I give Twilight Saga: New Moon a 0.5 out of 5.  There is very little that redeems this film.  The only enjoyment that can be pulled from it is that it’s easy to make fun of, and that it’s unintentionally funny.  I recommend only seeing the film if you have a private viewing with your wittiest friends who will riff on it throughout.

-Vince