Daybreakers

Reviewed by Drav3n

Format: Blu-ray

Release: May 11, 2010

Rated: R

Runtime: 98 Minutes

The Movie:

Blade. Underworld. Two bigfranchises about vampires that have lost the viewers interests. While vampire movies were still being made and released, it looked like people were just getting tired of the same old story. Then, unfortunately (fortunately?), Twilight came along and "saved" the vampire franchise and resurrected it. And saying that REALLY makes my stomach turn, because I can't hate Twilight enough! But now, vampires are back in business with successful tv shows like True Blood and The Vampire Diaries and movies like Let The Right One In, Thirst, I Am Legend and Daybreakers.

Daybreakers takes place in the year 2019 where an unknown plague has transformed almost all of the world's population into vampires. With the human population nearing extinction, the vampires need to capture the remaining humans or find a substitute for blood before it's too late and they become subsiders. Leading the research to create that blood-substitute is Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke). However, once Edward encounters a group of humans, one that he learns was a former vampire who cured himself, Elvis (Willem Dafoe) wants his help to recreate that event to develop the cure. Edward now has to choose between his allegiance to his fellow vampires or to the humans and help save the population.

After all this dumb Twilight craze, did the movie's main character really need to be called Edward? I would've been more content with the name Ed or Eddie, but seriously, Edward? Besides my nitpicking of the characters name, this was a solid movie from The Spierig Brothers, who had previously brought us the zombie film "Undead" in 2003. The thing that had me worried was that most of the vampire stories follow the same clichéd story. This movie does something different by having the vampires being the dominant ones, and the humans being the minority.

One thing that bothered me is the cast. Who thought it was a good idea to cast Ethan Hawke in an action/horror movie, and also have Willem Dafoe as your movie's tough guy character? Don't get me wrong, both are good actors...but I felt the roles could have been pulled off alot smoother if they had casted someone else.

Paying close attention to the movie, it's easy to question certain things that are happening and how to pertains to the plot. There was a fair amount of scenes that just didn't work or didn't make sense in the movie. And then the closing moments of the film should make you laugh. It's things like these that really take away from this film, because it showed real potential.

Presentation:

Presented in 1080p with a 2.40:1 aspect ratio, Daybreakers looks good, but not great. Object detail rarely stands out but there seems to be more defined detail on the set locations. Skin tones look good with the up-close facial shots showing a fair amount of detail as well. Colors like red and gold are strong and will catch your attention but blacks can be too dominant at times, blending the character into the background. The image looks really clean with just a small amount of grain that will barely be noticeable.

Audio:

Daybreakers is given a lossless 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track. Wow, from the first few moments of the movie, you should be able to tell what you are in for. The sound of the screams and the sound of the fire burning the vampire sounded incredible! What really stands out here are the sound effects happening in the background that come through sounding so clear. The only thing that can be a bother is with the dialogue. While it comes through sounding crystal clear and sharp, at times it can come through sounding low like a whisper. Especially compared to the loud sounding effects, you might find yourself raising and lowering the volumes throughout the movie. A French 5.1 Dolby Digital track has been provided as well.

Bonus Material:

The 2-disc set is broken down with disc 1 being the blu-ray disc with the movie and special featurs and disc 2 being a Digital Copy.

• Audio Commentary - Featuring directors Peter & Michael Spierig and creature designer Steve Boyle
• Making of Daybreakers (1080p, Runtime 2:01:38) - It's rare to come across a horror movie that has a lengthy documentary. I believe the last movie to have such a lengthy making of documentary was Rob Zombie's Halloween (which ran almost 4.5 hours long!). An excellent documentary that covers the entire process from the initial thoughts and ideas to the release of the movie. Eventhough their first movie they did was Undead, this was their first big studio movie that actually had a good budget to work with. For fans of the movie, or for fans of filmmaking, you will not want to miss this documentary!
• The Big Picture (1080p, Runtime 13:51) - A short film the directors created in 2000. No connection to Daybreakers, but gives you a good idea of what kind of a sense of humor they have.
• BonusView: Storyboards and Animatics - A picture-in-picture feature that will run during the course of film that compares the planning of the scenes in its early form to its final product.
• Poster Art Gallery - Shows 7 different theatrical posters
• Theatrical Trailer (1080p, Runtime ) -
• BD Touch Enabled - Access special features using your iPhone or iPod touch
• Lionsgate Live - Access wallpaper, Facebook/Twitter integration, and the LG widgets.

One of the nice little features on this blu-ray is at the disc's main menu there are two small widgets on the far right of the screen (connected through BD Live): One for current temperature in your city and the other being the current time. *You can toggle it off/on anytime by pressing the RED button on your blu-ray remote.

Bottom Line:

The movie isn't that bad. It is an acceptable hour and a half movie that brings good action and horror elements together with a good premise and good looking special effects. The image looks good, the audio is great, and the special features are excellent. I'd recommend this as a rental.