Daybreakers (2009)

Directors: Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig
Writers:    Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig
Cast:        Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill

In the year 2019, a plague has transformed almost every human into vampires. Faced with a dwindling supply of human blood, the fractured dominant race plots their survival; meanwhile, a researcher (Ethan Hawke) works with a covert band of humans survivors led by a former vampire (Willem Dafoe) on way to save mankind. 

The film came at a time when there were numerous vampire films getting released along with the 'Twilight' films. I don't know whether that would have helped or hindered the prospects of this film, nevertheless,  it made a very decent $50 million at the box office on a budget of $20 million. Like Spierig Bros' 2014 film, 'Predestination', this one was also made in Australia. Last year we had three great vampire films which did interesting things with the genre through subversion-Only Lovers Left Alive, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night and What We Do In The Shadows. Daybreakers also subvert the genre conventions by setting it at a time when vampires are dominating humans and they themselves are on the brink of collapse due to human extinction. The most valuable resource in this world is human blood and there are firms who farm humans in a very 'Matrix' like fashion and the Pharmaceutical company the researcher works for offers blood substitute. Many directors would have taken the lazy route of explaining this cinematic universe through narration but in Daybreakers things are revealed in a gradual manner, trusting the intelligence of the audience, and this keeps the first hour of the film very interesting. After that it kind of descends into a typical genre film with lots of gore and action sequences. The vampire society is also very much like human society that it replaces, with class stratification, similar kind of blood-sucking corporations etc. 

Overall it is a great watch even though it is not a perfect film. Surprisingly enough, Willem Dafoe was quite underwhelming in this film, and you don't say that about him in almost any other film. It was good to see Sam Neill playing the antagonist role in his typical screen-chewy fashion that I am familiar with from 'Peaky Blinders'. Makeups and effects were quite good and the production value is great considering the budget. It is not as good as Predestination but is still a great watch.

Rating: 4/5

                                                                            

Predestination (2014)

Directors: Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig
Writers:    Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig, Robert A, Heinlein
Cast:         Ethan Hawke, Sarah Snook, Noah Taylor

The life of a time-travelling Temporal agent. On his final assignment, he must pursue one criminal that has eluded him throughout time.

It is another one of those thrillers with time travel as theme with a twist of Inception thrown in. To pick holes in its plot is a futile exercise since time travel films are anyway rife with 'Bootstrap Paradox'. So best way to judge the film will be whether you were immersed in it throughout and whether you want to watch it again. It did both of those for me and therefore I reckon it is a great film. The cast is great and the directors who are known as 'The Spierig Brothers' look promising. It is another good Australian film in an year which looks like a great one for Aussie Cinema. 

Let me see if I have got a hang of the plot. If you are planning to watch it, I would recommend so, don't read ahead. We learn over the course of the film that time travel was invented by an organization in 1981 and you can travel 53 years on either side of the year zero, 1981. It is used to send Temporal agents to the past in order prevent crimes and Ethan Hawke is one of those. There is a a terrorist called Fizzle Bomber on the loose in late 60s and early 70s with his biggest operation happening in 1975. Ethan Hawke is assigned to do prevent the fizzle bomber. First scene of the film has someone getting burned while handling the bomb and someone else is also intervening on the proceeding and the bomb goes off. My initial impression was that the man who got burned was the agent and he is given facial reconstructive surgery. Then it cuts to Ethan Hawke who is given another go and he goes back to 1970 as a bartender and meets a writer who tells him his/her life story. After the story is over Hawke prompts him to join the organization and before that he takes him back to 1963 where he meets his past, which is a she, and proceed to have sex with her conceiving a baby. The baby is stolen by Ethan Hawke who goes back to 1945 and put it in the orphanage and it grows up to be the girl from 1963. So far- the writer, the girl and the baby are same people. So the writer fucks with himself/herself giving birth to herself/himself who is taken back to continue the cycle. Then Ethan Hawke makes one more attempt at stopping the bomber and it turns out that the burned man was indeed the bomber (first scene). He again goes back in time and reaches 1975 where his time travel machine was supposed to decommission, and it does not, and he pieces together clues to find out that the bomber is another older version of him and he kills him. It turns out that the writer, girl, baby, Ethan Hawke and bomber are all one and the same. I don't know whether it made any sense to you but the million dollar question is what is the purpose of all this and whether there was any real fuck ups they are trying to fix. At the end of it, what exactly he is trying to fix is not clear. Maybe the girl is fucked by different versions of herself and the point of the story is whether she ends up bitter after it. Since the bomber had long hair, Ethan Hawke must have thought it was she who was the bomber but in fact it was another version of him. But that doesn't make any sense since she is anyway gonna have sex change operation. It is a clusterfuck. I know what happened in the sense that all of them are the same person but the motivations are not clear. I guess I will watch it again but I don't think all of it will become clear. Maybe it was just a cerebral experience in terms of figuring out the plot and nothing much more to it.

Film is based on Robert A. Heinlein's short story "—All You Zombies—".To sum up it is great watch, rehashing the Looper theme but it goes several iterations further. Cast is great but I don't know whether it will remain great on further viewings. Whether you enjoy it or not will very much depend on how arsed you are about plot making any sense. 

Rating: 4.5/5