11:14:12 AM Will Edmondson: Last night, our beloved readers had us see "Daybreakers," Tara, and you know, I think it's time for me to have a little talk with them.
11:15:35 AM Tara Ariano: I'm sure I don't know what you mean. "Daybreakers" was extremely educational to me. But go ahead.
11:17:13 AM Will Edmondson: Look, I get that some people don't like "Avatar" for a variety of reasons: It's overhyped, maybe not that good (I haven't seen it yet), asinine, etc. But just because you, reader, don't want to see "Avatar" doesn't mean it's okay to inflict pain on a fellow human being.
11:18:05 AM Tara Ariano: It's like the READERS are VAMPIRES preying on us!
11:20:08 AM Will Edmondson: I don't know about that.

11:20:08 AM Will Edmondson: I just think our readers have a very weird sense of what constitutes a movie worth watching. It's not that "Daybreakers" was aggressively bad, because it isn't "All About Steve," it isn't "New Moon." It's just so forgettable and plain bad that there's really nothing constructive to say about it.
11:21:38 AM Tara Ariano: Well, let's look at the story. It's 2019, ten years after a worldwide vampire plague has turned almost the entire human race into the undead. (Also, the fact that the outbreak took place in 2009 shows how long this movie's been sitting in the can, waiting to be released straight to DVD, as it should have been.)
11:23:55 AM Will Edmondson: Yeah, and Ethan Hawke is in it, and not at his best. My girlfriend Isabel Lucas tries her best to save this movie, but to no avail. However, Willem Dafoe is still the man for a variety of reasons.
11:27:39 AM Tara Ariano: Yes, I'm sure that was the best Isabel Lucas could do...which is sad for her future career. Hawke plays a hematologist at a giant evil shadowy corporation that basically farms humans for their blood -- but human supplies are dwindling, and the vampires are facing what amounts to a global food crisis. Now, I'm sure SOMEONE involved in this story thought this could be turned into an allegory about human arrogance and the issues we may very soon face in terms of our food and water resources...but I wouldn't say it works on the level of, say, a "District 9."
11:28:40 AM Will Edmondson: Isabel Lucas's prospects are bright, she is a shining beacon of happiness and goodwill that blesses everything she touches. But I don't know about "Daybreakers." I don't think anyone, regardless of education or political beliefs, could possibly think that this halfassed look at a vampire dystopia could be an allegory for anything.
11:30:46 AM Tara Ariano: You also didn't believe "2012" was a secret socialist screed!
11:31:07 AM Will Edmondson: ...You're kidding, right? You've got to be kidding.
11:31:16 AM Tara Ariano: hee hee hee.

11:32:40 AM Will Edmondson: What I mean is that the problems within "Daybreakers" that cause "huge moral quandaries" aren't actual problems. They're based in this lazily-contrived vampire world, and have seemingly very simple solutions.
11:33:36 AM Tara Ariano: Not just simple, but essentially magical. Hawke's character is a hematologist, but evidently his expertise in the field doesn't help solve the problem AT ALL. The characters do [SPOILER!] find two different ways to cure vampirism -- both of which are discovered totally by accident.
11:34:25 AM Will Edmondson: And there's a third, too, because Hawke's protégé in his lab creates a blood substitute that could save the planet at the end of the movie.
11:34:47 AM Tara Ariano: Right -- but that's the one people were actually TRYING to make. And it's like insulin for diabetics: it manages the disease, it doesn't cure it.
11:36:45 AM Will Edmondson: Right, but that's still a short-term solution. There are then three ways to solve the major issue in this movie. And yet, it drags on with this kind of false-dramatic pretense, like its going to be suspenseful to see which antidote wins. And really? I DON'T CARE WHICH WINS. BECAUSE I DON'T LIVE IN A VAMPIRE DYSTOPIA.

11:40:30 AM Tara Ariano: Well, right. And also if the writer can just make up story points as he or she (or, more likely, "they") go along, then what's the point in my getting involved in the plot? So Cure #1 is, if you put a vampire in the sun and then really quickly put him out, he turns human. And Cure #2 is, if a vampire bites a recovered vampire, the biting vampire turns human. Both of these are accidental discoveries: there's nothing that precedes them in the plot to suggest that there's a logical reason either of those things should work. So basically the writer just gets into a story corner and then busts out not one but TWO deus ex machinas. It's weak and lazy.
11:42:13 AM Will Edmondson: It's hard for me to even have that complaint, because that would require comparing "Daybreakers" to pieces of writing that the authors have actually thought about. I refuse to believe that people thought about this movie while writing it. Like, the Spierig brothers -- who wrote and directed this movie -- are not on the Coen Brothers' level with their plot devices. That's all I'm saying.
11:44:05 AM Tara Ariano: They're not even the Farrelly brothers.
11:44:39 AM Will Edmondson: You know, they're not even the Wibberley siblings.
11:44:50 AM Tara Ariano: TOTALLY. Who are the Wibberley siblings?
11:45:30 AM Will Edmondson: They wrote "National Treasure" (WHICH I LIKED) and "G-Force."
11:45:36 AM Tara Ariano: I see.

11:46:20 AM Will Edmondson: But, I do want to mention the brilliance of Willem Dafoe for a second. Because, this guy in this movie is really a hero. I'm not talking about his character, I'm talking about the actor and how he played the character.
11:47:11 AM Tara Ariano: I don't know how you put Willem Dafoe in a vampire movie and make him the EX-vampire. He looks like a vampire when he's just walking down the street. He's looked like a vampire since "Platoon." But anyway, go on.
11:51:19 AM Will Edmondson: Willem Dafoe's character, as you said is an accidental ex-vampire who stumbles across the cure for the disease by crashing his car and burning himself in the sunlight. He's supposed to be a little bit of a renegade outlaw fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kind of guy. The Spierigs, in their infinite wisdom, named his character "Elvis."
11:51:34 AM Tara Ariano: And had him half-sing an Elvis song! And dress like a rockabilly! In 2019!
11:51:52 AM Will Edmondson: Why "Elvis," you ask? Because of the song "Burning Love," and of course, when his skin gets in the sun, it burns. Which, as you mentioned, he at one point half-sings. CLEARLY, "Elvis" is not the most prestigious role of Dafoe's career, and the best part is, he acts like it. The Spierigs give "Elvis" most of the "laugh lines" if you will, which Dafoe delivers with flair, of course, but also a little too excitedly. It's almost like Dafoe's ghosting in the sarcasti-quotes.
11:54:38 AM Tara Ariano: I suppose he is committed.
11:57:01 AM Will Edmondson: It's the only enjoyable part of the movie; that and the hysterical Chrysler product placement. Apparently Chrysler doesn't learn to make cars that people want to drive in the next nine years.
11:57:19 AM Tara Ariano: Why bother, if they need to sell to the vampire market?
11:58:03 AM Will Edmondson: I think vampires have human tastes (PUN!) and still use human currency. It's just good business practice to make cars that the movie's audience would want to drive.

12:01:38 PM Will Edmondson: Anyway, the point is, "Daybreakers" was a lazy, boring, uninteresting movie. It could've been an episode of a Vampire-based "CSI" show, and still cut ten minutes.
12:02:19 PM Tara Ariano: Agreed. As much as I don't want to see "Avatar," I couldn't have possibly enjoyed that business less than I did "Daybreakers" -- and as you know, I will watch some CRAP.
12:04:34 PM Will Edmondson: I mean, I just hope the readers know that with great power comes great responsibility. And yes, it's fun to see people annihilate bad movies in online forums. But in order for that to happen, a movie needs to be actually bad. Not lazy bad.
12:05:05 PM Tara Ariano: Will, be fair. "Daybreakers" really was bad in every way a movie CAN be bad.
12:06:23 PM Will Edmondson: No, I disagree. I love bad movies that are actually bad and campy and funny. This movie is bad because it set out to be about a 6, and turned out the be a 4. (10 being Oscar-worthy.) The best bad movies are movies that set out to be 9 or 10s and turn out to be 3 or 4s.

12:06:37 PM Tara Ariano: A 4?! A 2.
12:06:46 PM Will Edmondson: Dafoe makes it a 4.
12:07:05 PM Tara Ariano: Let's call it 3 and move on with our lives. This movie is too dumb to fight over!
12:07:06 PM Will Edmondson: 2 is like "2012." Was this movie worse than "2012"? No.
12:07:09 PM Tara Ariano: YES! SO MUCH WORSE THAN "2012"! But seriously: let's not pick that scab.
12:08:30 PM Will Edmondson: Right, sorry, I forgot we're going off your scale, in which "Up in the Air" is half as good as "2012." I should be more considerate.
12:08:43 PM Tara Ariano: This is exactly what I wanted to avoid.