Step 1: Give it an A for effort, C for execution. As cool/creepy as it seems, Daybreakers just doesn’t quite measure up to its potential.
Step 2: Put an unique spin on a familiar genre. I mean, a world in which the majority population are now vampires, made that way by some random virus from a German bat bite, has to rank up there for originality, so you have to hand it to the newest writing/directing brothers, Michael and Peter Spierig, for coming up with the idea. To go even further, the vampires have had it good for nine years, ruling the world by night, but now face a severe starvation issue when the supply of humans, and their blood, runs out. And when a vampire starts to starve, it’s not death he gets but a sort of hideous transformation. In other words, the vampires turn into MONSTER vampires. Sweet.
Step 3: Read on for more compelling plot. Corporate bad-guy vampire Bromley (Sam Neill), who runs the major blood supply company, counts on his top hematologist Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) to come up with a blood substitute, so vampires can 
still get nourishment and give the surviving humans – and yes, there are a few – time to repopulate and get back on the food chain. Problem is, Edward misses being human and is not at all pleased to have been turned into a vampire, so his loyalty to the company is sketchy at best. Then he hooks up with a small band of humans, finds out there could be a cure to vampirism and tries to turn things around. Unfortunately, this is when the story starts to fall apart. The Spierig brothers are not able to sustain their imaginative mythology, instead opting for some quick and not-so-believable fixes to the problems. It’s sort of like they ran out of gas. Although, visually, Daybreakers doesn’t necessarily suck. The vampire world is sort of a throwback to the 1940s – and there’s lots of blood and guts. Lots and lots and lots of it, which should be refreshing for those vampire movie lovers who are tired of those silly romances between humans and blood suckers.
Step 4: Actors, take a back seat. The main draw to Daybreakers (or at least the first three-quarters) is the plot, of course, but Hawke as the do-gooder vampire and Neill as the evil are servicable. Willem Dafoe sort of does his over-the-top thing again as a former vampire, now revitalized human, while the rest of the little-known names carry out the movie’s agenda as best they can.
Level of difficulty in watching Daybreakers: Intriguingly easy – at first. Then all those great intentions start to drag down and down …