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Release Date: January 8, 2010
Rating: R (for strong bloody violence, language and brief nudity)
Genre: Horror
Run Time: 98 min.
Director: Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig
Actors: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill, Michael Dorman, Isabel Lucas

No? You’re tired of the Twilight hype, right? Enough with True Blood! Somebody needs to put a stake through the popularity of the genre and soon. Are you with me?

Hold on to those bloodthirsty notions for a moment. Turns out that a little thoughtfulness goes a long way. Daybreakers takes the genre in some new and interesting directions, but it can’t memorably resolve its story. With strong atmosphere and respectable performances from familiar actors, it has the ability to jolt viewers with a few shocking moments that will satisfy people looking for some gore to go with the more thoughtful aspects of the story. But the filmmakers’ attempts to cater to the basest impulses of today’s horror-movie audiences ultimately work against the movie.

Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) lives in a world overtaken by vampires. A montage of news headlines during the film’s opening moments tell the story. Ten years earlier, a single bat caused an outbreak that led to vampires taking over the populace. Humans were given a chance to join the vampires. Those that resisted became enemies of the state. Posters of Uncle Sam no longer shout, “I want you!” but “Capture humans!” That’s because the supply of human blood that vampires need to sustain themselves is drying up, and their increasing desperation for the fluid effects even such things as their “coffee,” which is now only 20% real blood, rather than 100%. It’s making the vampires angry. They need their fix.

Dalton is a vampire, but he won’t touch human blood. He’s employed by a firm working on a blood substitute, but the company’s experimental efforts keep going spectacularly, fatally awry. Complicating these efforts is the head of Dalton’s company, Charles Bromley (Sam Neill), who may not be as altruistic as Dalton. After all, what profit is there in altruism?

When Dalton encounters Audrey (Claudia Karvan) and Lionel (Willem Dafoe), they pursue a solution to save humanity. All they need is the cooperation of trustworthy vampires like Edward to perfect their proposed remedy.

The story isn’t groundbreaking, but it plays surprisingly well, at least during its first half, when the film’s neo-noir atmosphere is reminiscent of great sci-fi films like Blade Runner. Daybreakers‘ story also can be read as a metaphor  for the risks of depleting the world’s resources. The film looks stylish, and Hawke brings a brooding thoughtfulness to the role of Dalton. That’s the good news.

The rest is standard stuff. Neill gives a boiler-plate performance as a sketchy businessman more interested in profits than in people’s welfare. The second half of the film includes action-movie chases and the obligatory set-up for a sequel. The best thing about the latter part is Willem Dafoe’s hammy performance as Lionel, who knows the secret to saving humanity. He keeps things more interestingâ??and even funâ??than they might otherwise have been with a lesser actor in the role.

Daybreakers isn’t, in the end, a particularly good film. Its original ideas are overcome and outweighed by genre clichés. But it does take a fresh approach to the genre, and provides a more cerebral experience than might be expected. Maybe another filmmaker will take the ball that Daybreakers dropped and run with it.

CAUTIONS:

• Language/Profanity: “go–amn” and other misuses of God’s name; “s-it”; the “f” word, including “motherfu–er”; “b-tch”; “s-it.”
• Smoking/Drinking/Drugs: Pervasive smoking.
• Sex/Nudity: Nude humans are shown hooked to extraction devices, with nether regions obscured but chests exposed; a crude comparison to inexpensive prostitutes.
• Violence/Crime: The police use a shock device to subdue unruly vampires; naked humans are hooked to devices that extract their blood; humans blood is shown several times; a man vomits green fluid and the skin on his face bubbles; a man explodes, spraying blood and innards everywhere; a car accident; bow hunting and shooting of humans; vampires attack, bite necks and drink blood, as well as lick blood off surfaces; a man slices a vampire open and decapitates him; lots of guns and shooting; a vampire is impaled; explosions; a vampire is ejected from a car, body aflame; a woman cuts her wrist and bleeds into a cup; needles and syringes shown; a person is struck with the butt of a gun; Edward catches fire several times; armed troops attack; a female vampire drinks blood from her own wrist; dead bodies in a cabin are shown; vampires pulled by a vehicle in the light, which causes them to burst into flame; a man’s head is yanked off his body, which is ripped apart.
• Religion: Immortality is said to have solved the problem of fatal illnesses; immortality on earth is a relief for those who fear facing death.
• Suicide: A young girl greets the dawn, realizing that the sun’s rays will kill her.

Release Date: January 15, 2010

Rating: R (for some brutal violence and language)

Genre: Action, Drama

Run Time: 118 min.

Director: Albert and Allen Hughes

Actors: Denzel Washington, Mila Kunis, Gary Oldman,  Jennifer Beals.

“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land– not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. “â??Amos 8:11

“At any time, and most in a time of trouble, a famine of the word of God is the heaviest judgment. â?¦ The most amiable and zealous would perish, for want of the water of life, which Christ only can bestow.”â??From Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on Amos 8

End-of-the-world scenarios are all the rage at the movies. Last year, the mindless popcorn flick 2012 was a big hit, while an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, a father-son survival tale set among cannibals and killers after an unspecified catastrophe, failed to find a sizable audience.

The Book of Eli continues the string of apocalyptic tales. It has style, it has action, but it also has something that sets it apart from even the best mindless action films. It has a point: The Word of God can be used for both good or ill, but a world without the Word is a hopeless place.

The film gives audiences a bit more to chew on than the standard action blockbuster. It suggests that a ruined civilization can be rebuilt one of two ways: under the thumb of a power-hungry tyrant who preaches his own distorted version of Scripture, or by getting the Word of God into the hands of others.

Eli (Denzel Washington) is a wandering man on a mission. Following a cataclysmic event decades ago that led to mass Bible-burningâ??the details behind the actions are left vague, but we’re told that some survivors blamed religionâ??a voice directed Eli to one of the last remaining copies of the King James Version of the Bible. The voice told him to go West, and 30 years later, he’s still on his journey.

Shoes are a necessityâ??Eli removes the shoes from a corpse early in the filmâ??but so is food. He survives by bow hunting, and any kind of meat will do (a hairless cat is Eli’s first victim in the film).

Eli also has divine help. The voice that spoke to him years earlier promised to protect him, and one way that protection manifests itself is through Eli’s deadly accuracy with a sword. His first encounter with a gang of cannibalistic thugs is no contest: Eli cuts off one man’s hand at the wrist, then kills the rest of the man’s gang in quick succession.

It’s one of many grisly scenes of killing in this violent, “R”-rated film. Christian viewers may see the violence, always in self-defense, as justified given the film’s grim survival scenario, but directors Albert and Allen Hughes, known for violent films like Dead Presidents, From Hell, give the scenes an aggressive style designed to satisfy viewers’ bloodlust.

Eli’s nemesis is Carnegie (Gary Oldman), the leader of a dusty town who reads any book his men can acquire for him. But there’s one book he wants most of allâ??a Bible. He remembers the days before the event that ended civilization as we know it, and the book’s power over those who believe in its message. He wants to build his town, then expand his empire by preaching his own version of what the book contains. The distorted message won’t matter to the illiterate populace, who won’t be able to challenge Carnegie’s deliberate misinterpretation of Scripture.

The Book of Eli boils down to a confrontation between these two menâ??one of whom wants the Bible for his own purposes, and one who wants it to complete a divine mission. There’s a woman, Solara (Mila Kunis), who comes to believe in Eli’s mission, and another (played by Jennifer Beals) whose allegiance to Carnegie is challenged by Eli’s arrival. But their characters aren’t well developed.

The film’s view of revelation may upset some Christians and hearten others, depending on their views of extra-Biblical revelation. While the Bible is still available, it is no longer widely available. Eli knows his Bible; he reads it every day. But his mission isn’t laid out in Scripture. It comes to him directly, through a voice that only he can hear. Without the voice, Eli never would have found the book. He never questions the mission he’s been given, although it’s not clear until late in the film why he’s been told to do what he does. He walks by faith, not by sight, and his faith is ultimately rewarded.

The Hughes brothers’ film isn’t perfect even by action-movie standards. It has a few long lulls, and its female characters are largely inconsequential. What elevates the film from the mediocrity is a twist ending that is genuinely surprising, and the Bible’s centrality to the film’s message of hope and redemption for mankind.

The Book of Eli isn’t a particularly adult film, but it’s also not for kids. It’s rough going in spots, with brutal killings and suggestions of sexual violence. Despite those harsher elements, the film is edifying in showing God’s divine powerâ??through protection of those He loves, but also through the preservation and propagation of his revelation. It’s a Hollywood blockbuster that builds up, rather than tears down. Let’s hope it’s the start of a trend.

CAUTIONS:

• Language/Profanity: Lord’s name taken in vain; several obscenities, including the “f” word, the “s” word, “go–ammit.”
• Smoking/Drinking/Drugs: Drinking in a bar setting.
• Sex/Nudity: None, but Eli wipes down his upper body and reaches down into his pants; a woman shows off her cleavage and tries to lure a man into a trap.
• Violence/Crime: A gun is shown next to a corpse; a cat is shot and killed by an arrow; human skulls; a body shown hanging from a rope; Eli cuts off a man’s hand with a sword, then kills several other men who attack him; Eli delivers a death blow to a wounded man; people are shot and killed; a woman is thrown down and assaulted; cannibalism is mentioned; Eli throws a man’s head against a bar, causing him to bleed; men are shot through the groin area and upper body with arrows; a bird is shot out of the sky with an arrow; Eli and Solara fall through a trap door; an extended gunfight between Eli’s friends and Carnegie’s men; grenade explosions; a man is shot in the gut at point-blank range.
• Religion: A man is told that he’ll be held to account for the things he’s done; a reference to the Fall and to God’s curse in Genesis 3, just before Eli kills several people; Eli says grace with Solara, and later she says grace with her mother and Carnegie; Eli says he grew up with the Bible and knows its power; Carnegie wants to use the Bible as a weapon, a way to keep people under his sway; Eli is said to be “protected somehow; Eli says he reads the Bible every day, and he recites Psalm 23; Eli says a voice led him to find the Bible, to take it to the West, and that he’d be protected; Eli says God is good all the time; the message of Scripture is said to boil down to doing more for others than you do for yourself.

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