Daybreakers

Three weeks without going to the cinema. Felt like three years. But thankfully, the school holidays are over and the cinemas are mine again, MINE I TELL YA... oh, and the half dozen other people's there today as well.
A movie about a vampire called Edward with porcelain skin and golden eyes... that's where the similarities end with those other vampire movies. The only thing that sparkles in Daybreakers is the fiery shower of embers erupting from a self-combusting vampire after having his heart replaced with a wooden stake. Makes me wonder if vampires have a tag on the back of their necks that say 'Highly Flammable'. Maybe they should.
Daybreakers is written and directed by Aussie brothers Michael and Peter Spierig, who also brought us Undead (haven't see that one yet but plan to). The movie is set in 2019, a future so dark I gotta wear shades. Vampires rule the world and human beings are being farmed and harvested like human beans for our precious blood. Precious...
The Spierig brothers must have had a double date one day with the Wachowski brothers and learnt some ideas about set design in the future. Much like The Matrix, Daybreakers is set in a bleak, cold, gray world. High-rise buildings have their windows blocked, Chrysler has released a sleek, black car with 'Daylight Driving Mode' consisting of ultra dark windows and roof mounted cameras. Very handy for the fatally photophobic. Methinks Ken Done must have been put in the blood farm otherwise there might be a splash of colour here and there. Would it hurt to have some pretty rugs or tapestries around the place?
Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) is Chief Hematologist for Charles Bromley's (Sam Neill) super-mega pharmaceutical company Bromley Marks. Blood supplies are at an all time low. First the Global Financial Crisis, then the Global Blood Crisis, what a downer! Bromley and his crack research team are looking for a blood substitute to put on the market and save the species while making a load of cash at the same time. It seems that pigs blood like, totally ruins your morning coffee. Add to that, when vamps don't drink human blood for a while they turn into something else; nasty looking vampires with wings and pointy ears that look like Spock!
Edward, who has a soft spot for humans, no, not in his belly... crashes into cross-bow toting human Audrey (Claudia Karvan), who sets up a meeting with Elvis (Willem Dafoe). Elvis tells Edward how he was once a vampire and now he's cured, his heart beats, he can go out into the sunlight, he's permanently lost those golden contact lenses.
In a safe house Elvis, Audrey and Edward attempt to recreate the way that Elvis was cured. Can a burst of sunlight and a wet blanket really change Edward back into a human being?
One thing that bugs me about getting 'big Hollywood actors' over in Australia to make films is that our guys are the ones that have to lose their accents. What is wrong with Aussies playing Aussies on screen? Is the United States of America the only country in the world in movieland? Other countries with other people and other accents do exist! Or did all the vampires eat everyone in Australia and New Zealand? You can always tell an Aussie bunging on a US accent, look at Sam Worthington in Avatar, that Aussie tang kept popping out mid sentence. If you're gonna take our accent away then at least give the actors really, really good voice training!!
All in all it was a good movie, even though it's taken a few story ideas from Charlaine Harris' True Blood saga, better that than the other one. A few gory, bloody bits here and there is always nice to see. Though it must be said, vampires are very messy drinkers. A bit of decorum wouldn't go astray.
Seven out of ten.