The premise may seem far-fetched, but not if you consider that Morocco offered bomb-sniffing monkeys to the “coalition of the willing” for the Iraq War. The leader of the G-Force team is an unconventional human scientist named Ben. The guinea pigs are cast as racial stereotypes.
There’s way too much sucking happening in Daybreakers, even if this movie is about Vampires.
The first vampire movie of 2010 could only have been worse if it were the new installment of the Twilight Saga. But this one comes close to that abysmal level of film making by imagining a world ruled by Vampies that is somehow pretty boring, allowing random accidents to drive forward the plot, and rely on cartoon-like gore scenes when all else fails.
The movie opens and we’re introduced to a girl writing her suicide note in April of 2019. Just as we are musing over whether the fact she’s not posting this to a social network is a hint at the real reason for her loneliness, she bursts into flames. It’s the first taste of overcooked vampire barbeque we get, but there’s plenty more to come.
Next we’re introduced to Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke), who works at a human farm. Vampires are in charge of this world and any humans left over are only good for providing blood. This provides for some scenes where we see naked men and women strapped into place in large industrial farms that feed an inhuman society. It’s almost a cool idea, but The Matrix thought of it first, and KFC is doing this in the real world with its “chickens” anyway.
We’re introduced to a Vampire society that seems much like our own except there are inexplicably more bats flying around. The masses drink blood in their coffee as they ride the subway to work, and chain smoke because they’re immortal and hell, they can get away with it.
It seems like this Vampire society should have been more awesome. With everyone having vastly improved strength and speed capabilities, you’d think there’d be more extreme sports – perhaps a variation of basketball with human heads replacing the ball, and replaced by spikes. The vampires could go up for a slam and squeeze the blood out like juicing a lemon.
Seriously, more could have been done with the Vampire society theme. There wasn’t even an easy laugh like having someone sit down to a bowl of Count Chocula for breakfast, or count things in the style of The Count from Sesame Street.
The vampires are running out of blood as the human population dwindles to extinction. Dalton works for a predictably evil corporation that is looking to solve that problem by creating a blood substitute. If they don’t find it fast, everyone will turn into a mindless succubus creature that act similar to fans of the Twighlight Saga.
One chance encounter with a succubus establishes a healthy vampire can degenerate to this putrid mutant in a matter of days. The promising action sequence disappoints when it transforms into a grotesque kitchen knife demonstration as Dalton’s G.I. Joe brother filets the creature and then decapitates it.
The gore scenes in this movie are so excessive that they are more comical than gross. Vampires instantaneously explode into a fluid burst of redness that resembles a Pizza Pops commercial.
It’s surprising just how much innards do explode out of these paper thin characters. Sam Neil plays the blood-sucking (literally and figuratively) executive who becomes the main villain. He is nothing but pure evil as he plots to turn his own daughter into a vampire, and then hide a cure from society so he can assure his company “repeat business.” All the while, he wears a power suit and drinks blood out of a wine glass.
But the worst is Willem Dafoe’s unfortunate attempt at a Southern accent as Elvis, a human with the secret that will save vampires from themselves. No, it’s not a deep friend peanut butter and banana sandwich. The audience must indulge embarrassing attempts at wit such as: “about as safe as bare-backin’ a $5 whore.”
The plot seems to progress through accidental coincidences. Dalton meets the human rebels because he’s distracted while driving, the cure is discovered by a botched suicide attempt, and an even-better cure is similarly stumbled upon. The real accident is that someone let this script make its way to a final cut.
My advice, if you do find yourself forced to watch this forgettable Vampire flick, entertain yourself by exclaiming in the style of The Count every time a vampire is gored to death.
“One! One, bloody vampire explosion!… Two! Two, bloody vampire explosions…”
Surrogates is a case of a sci-fi movie with a half-decent concept executed poorly with a cast of B-list actors and a budget that was obviously way too low.
This movie is set in the future, where humans no longer go out in public for any reason. Instead, a robotic “Surrogate” is piloted by the humans and society has benefitted as a result – there’s virtually no crime and everyone is attractive. You have to wonder if the film’s producers did their research before deciding on the timing of this release. There was another, slightly bigger budget sci-fi epic about humans interacting via “avatars” that sort of stole the spotlight on this concept.
Surrogates is such a waste of two hours and so obviously bad that it’s not even worth typing about. Instead, let’s imagine how much better this movie would have been if instead of robots, humans interacted using 8-inch tall Barbie and Ken dolls.
Bruce Willis dons his familiar action hero role as Tom Greer, and adorns a silly bleach-blonde wig as a surrogate. The parted hair, suit, and plastic expression that Willis wears through much of the movie is already a spot-on impersonation of a Ken doll, so you might as well go the whole way and film the movie Robot Chicken style using the toy figurine.
Instead of saving money by driving around present-day cars like a Ford Taurus and Toyota Prius (apparently this society wasn’t affected by the recall), you could film all the car chase scenes using futuristic looking toy cars. Hell, you could even have them turn into flying cars if you wanted to.
The movie’s gorier action scenes would be infinitely more entertaining as we watch doll limbs fly off and paint scratched off to reveal colourless plastic. Surrogates goofy twist gimmicks would also take on a whole new meaning when Ken’s paints were yanked down to reveal he has no real genetalia.
Surrogates movie trailer.
This movie was such a box office bomb that it’s unlikely people would even consider sending their robot servants out to see it. That makes a sequel unlikely, but if they do one – let’s hope for two hours of hearing Willis do his raspy voice-over for Ken.