Daybreakers

I did not love this movie. I love vampires (grown up ones, not teen ones), and sci fi and all that jazz, but this movie was too hokey. There were so many missed opportunities. I liked the general premise, but everything in the movie moves way too fast. We start out focused on Edward (played by Ethan Hawke. SERIOUSLY do we need another lead vampire named Edward right now?) who we quickly learn is a human loving vampire, who wants to do away with human farming and find a synthetic blood or a cure for vampires. He soon meets a human named Elvis. His real name is Lionel but he goes by Elvis because his heart restarted, or something equally cheesey. Elvis was a human turned vampire turned human. Ed thinks it's impossible, but when Elvis tells him how he did it, he can't resist. He too wants to be burned alive, then have the fire put out, then have his heart start burning again. Naturally. So Ed gets humanized and he, Elvis, and human hottie Audrey go vampire-huntin. First stop, the home of one of Ed's former coworkers, who sets them up and captures Audrey. Ed and Elvis run, Ed's brother tracks them down and feeds on Elvis. Turns out that human turned vampire turned human blood is a cure that doesn't involve a personal barbecue, but humanizes vampires lickity split. So now Ed has a way to get back at his old boss. A man whose own daughter abandoned him when he became a vampire and she refused to turn. She's later captured as part of a human round up, daddy dearest has her turned, she goes rogue and gets killed for real. It all happens so fast you don't even have time to care. Frankie (Ed's brother) apparently feels bad for some reason, even though we don't learn anything about him or what's happened to cause this change of heart. He's always got tears in his eyes, like he's feeling some great emotion, but we're just not a part of it.

There is so much potential in this movie, but zero character development. There is a hint at a romance between Ed and Audrey, and I thought maybe they'd throw Frankie a bone. There's not even really an ending. I guess everyone ends up getting killed except for Ed, Elvis and Audrey, but who knows what's going on in the rest of the world. The vampires unknowingly cure themselves by feeding on humans that were vampires that were humans, but then other vampires eat them, it's a whole thing.

Ethan Hawke was awesome. He's back, baby. His voice is a tiny bit annoying. It's very "Batman when he's trying to sound different than Bruce Wayne", but he makes it very sexy. All the vampires smoke, and it's so funny how foreign it is to see socially acceptable smoking in movies these days.

I enjoyed the movie, it was entertaining on a purely superficial level, but I didn't feel like it was one of the best vampire movies I've seen. Plus aside from not being able to die, these vampires had no special skills. Where's your super strength and lightening speed!

I just wanted to know the characters better. All of them. I can't even remember Ed's boss's name, or his daughter's name, or the vampire doctor's name. And I just saw the movie about an hour ago.