short thought: "daybreakers"

i think the real short thought on this movie is: it could have been worse.

either that, or the bit from an mst3k host sketch where the bots and mike think they've gone back to earth and mike says, "yay! we can see ethan hawke movies again!" and he and the bots cheer wildly for several seconds before mike goes, "wait -- that's not a good thing. oh...no..."

but that's a bit unfair -- hawke is actually pretty good in this.

rough outline of plot (spoiler-free): vampires rule the world. humans are a much-hunted endangered species. when they're found, they're either eaten on the spot or turned over to a giant corporate conglomerate which milks them for blood. the blood is then packaged and sold in a variety of ways to the vampire population. the obvious problem here: the humans are running out and the vampires never die. this is an issue, particularly when these vampires, when denied human blood at regular intervals, go truly peculiar: full-on nosferatu, clinging to the ceiling, hissing at everyone, anti-social to the nth degree peculiar (see below -- not exactly sparkly, is he?)

enter ethan hawke as a vampire scientist, trying to find a blood substitute. problem is, the only substitute he has developed so far has -- well, lets just say, serious side-effects. head-explody kind of side-effects. (i don't know why, but i found the scene where hawke and his associates test the substitute on the soldier volunteer hilarious. i don't know what this says about me.)

so this is a pretty good story: we have a population under threat. we have a bad guy (sam neill as evil corporate magnate with a great suit) and we have a good guy.

then the story started to wander. our evil corporate magnate has a daughter who refused to turn vampire and ran to the renegade human population. he wants her back and turned. okay, well, that's--- and then we have renegade humans who get in touch with ethan hawke (as our token "nice" vampire) and try to interest him in developing a cure for vampirism. and then we have willem dafoe (enjoying chewing on passing scenery) who claims to have been a vampire and have been cured by -- getting into a high-speed car wreck in his '57 chevy, going through the windshield, and lighting on fire.

huh what now?

so -- the cure for vampirism is auto crashes? and lighter fluid?

ah, what the hell. the whole thing turns out kinda cool with a huge bloodbath -- there's a lot of good suits -- and some awesome crossbows. focus on that and you'll do just fine. don't think too hard about all the opportunities daybreakers missed to be much more awesome.