The Movie Diorama An original vampire flick? Impossible! Yet, the Spierig brothers managed to flip a typical clichéd vampire story on its head to create something as fresh as human blood. That doesn't prevent the overall production from feeling inexpensive, but it maintains your attention throughout. A vampire hematologist is tasked with researching for a blood substitute as the remaining human population dwindles, meaning vampires will have no blood left. Just the originality alone is enough to quench our bloodythirstiness, considering it was released during a period of genre saturation (no thanks to 'Twilight'). The Spierig brothers fortunately managed to perpetuate a sense of intellectual world building, particularly in the first act. Immediately, this dark futuristic world is thoroughly explored, from the degenerative "subsiders" to the laboratory farms that harvest humans. Retaining dark gothic aesthetics without requiring towering spires and grand cathedrals. The story, whilst executed basically, illustrates the desperation that the vampire race is facing. Humanity faces extinction and the chic vampires face degenerating into psychotic bat creatures. There was just enough meat in the plot to keep me invested. Hawke is consistently decent as always, same can be said about Dafoe, both giving convincing and moody performances. Neill was perfect casting as the corporate antagonist, exhuming a menacingly calm demeanour. The visual effects however, were B-grade at best. So horrendously cheap looking that the production value deteriorated instantly and, on multiple occasions, took me out of the film. Laughably poor. The final act loses its intellectual plot and succumbs to mindless action with blood gushing everywhere. Whilst I appreciate the practical effects during these sequences, it just lets the overall narrative down. All that build up with minimal payoff, ultimately leaving a metallic aftertaste. For what it is worth though, the innovative premise, world building and performances converted me.

sydksu I really did enjoy this, but thought it had much greater potential. Would have been cool to see more of the humanity collapsing side, and elaborate more on the cure being distributed. Obviously it wasn't a true story, so it was kinda far fetched. I just find it hard to believe that not any powerful official or government agency would be interested that they found a cure, and them not be able to spread the word.

BobbyTarantino The idea behind the movie is genious. A bat-bourne plague that has turned nearly every human on the planet into vampires. The vampires struggle to survive due to limited amounts of human blood remaining. It's an amazing idea, and the new "vampire world" is beautifully crafted. Cars that are can drive the vampires around in the sunlight, coffee-shops that serves different bloodtypes down in the subway. Unfortunately for us the plot, struture, and visuals are lacking, and lowers the movie down to another generic splatter movie. I would recommend watching the movie just for the screenwriting. It's a cool world the screenwriters created, that had a lot of potensial. I would love to see a graphic novel adaption of the world we see in "daybreakers".

Rameshwar IN Reviewed August 2010The movie starts with a little girl vampire committing suicide by exposing herself to sun cause she is unable to cope up being a vampire. The story is set in 2017 when most of the world's population are turned to vampires (who are still functional in all professions in the society) and a huge pharmaceutical company trying to create an alternative for the increasing demand for blood simultaneously harvesting humans for the current supply. There are 100 reasons why it should have worked and only one why it didn't. Treatment. It has lots of thrills and gore for a horror, decently thought out science fiction, an interesting premise for a vampire genre and a plot line though a bit generic had potential. The narrative introduces and sets itself well and most performances are apt. But by the end, it becomes a second rate thriller and Willem Dafoe acts like a third rate sidekick. The production values complying to sets, costumes, cast and the world itself is decent but the visual effects could have been lot better. Anyone interested in the genre may not be too disappointed since we all know how the mainstream vampires of recent times sucked. The makers wanted to make a good movie but falters by trying to induce too much morality and also tries hard to increase the scope of it's audience segments. Falls slightly short on both attempts.