TheBelief Reviews

Legacy (I) (2010)

Gripping old-school thriller

[8/10 · 4 March 2010]

Legacy is an interesting film, to say the least. 90% of it is spent in a small hotel room, and follows the mental deterioration of a Black Ops soldier, recently returned from a botched mission in Eastern Europe, as he attempts a mission of self-retribution and revenge. It's a psychological thriller with stylistic hallmarks of greats from a bygone era ('Manchurian Candidate' and Hitchcock's 'Rear Window' spring to mind), where suspense and tension were paramount, instead of fast-paced action and explosive thrills.

A claustrophobic, slow-burning film like this lives or dies on it's performances, and Legacy really shines in that area, with Idris Elba playing the lead role with haunting intensity. The rest of the cast do great jobs as well.

The editing and cinematography are tight, and fit the dark, brooding mood of the film effectively.

The main story itself is gripping in all the right places, and is well paced, but there were one or two confusing moments where I felt a bit lost, and found myself wondering if I'd missed something important.

You owe it to yourself to check this out if you're a fan of strong acting, and clever, suspenseful thrillers.

Daybreakers (2009)

Is this the fresh, original take on vampires we've been waiting for? SPOILERS

[6/10 · 8 January 2010]

I'll be doing my best to avoid any crappy vampire puns throughout this review. don't read if you haven't seen the film as there'll be spoilers.

My expectations were quite high for this one. The trailer gave the impression of a deep and brooding story with the added bonus of being a fresh and original take on the vampire theme, and with a little action thrown in for good measure. In short, I was a little disappointed. I'll start with what I did like; the film kicks off well, setting up the concept and the ideas nicely. it seemed deep enough to make me want to continue watching, while also avoiding becoming too tangled in unnecessary and confusing detail. In fact, I can say that I enjoyed the first-half, on the whole. The film is also shot very well; the daytime shots have a golden, ethereal quality, and the camera work is pretty tight throughout. The acting from the main three guys, Hawke, Neill, and Dafoe, was fine, nothing special, but good quality that I'd expect from them. Now for what I didn't like. Firstly, what irks me the most about this film is that the great ideas felt wasted; it felt like all that the writers had was this great idea: 'imagine how cool it would be to make a vampire film where the vampires rule, and the human race is nearly extinct,' but then they didn't know what to do with it. Plot twists are thrown in without any real weight behind them; oh, so vampires can be cured by surviving severe sunburn........and?? oh, it also works by drinking cured vampire blood.....thanks, so what?? these twists did not lead anywhere, in fact it almost felt like the cured vampire blood idea was just put in as an excuse to have that astonishingly violent final scene, which I will get to in a minute. Other things that felt thrown in for no good reason were the characters, most notably, Isabel Lucas (aka the De-sex-ticon from Bayformers 2), who was just thrown into the mix and then thrown out before I could even say 'Bay sucks'. The renegade humans have a similar treatment, Ethan Hawke's science buddy annoyed me, particularly in the final scene, and all-in-all I felt no attachment to any of the characters, no sympathy, no bitterness, no admiration, no secret sexual attraction, nothing. Then we have those Blade 2-ish, bat monster things that the vampires turn into. Again, a cool concept; it illustrates what the vampires are really like under their fancy human exteriors, but it was wasted, not to mention that people in the cinema actually laughed when one of them breaks into Ethan Hawke's house, clings to the ceiling, spreads its cgi wings, and pulls a rather goofy grin. Also, a personal gripe, I wasn't fond of the jump-scares that were sprinkled around, most annoyingly being the random bats that would screech past the screen, like when Willem Dafoe is getting out of the water tank. What did that scene contribute to anything, expect to give audience a little jump? And finally we have the climax, which starts with an awkward attempt by Hawke to convince Sam Neill to bite him, then, in a film where there's been barely any real violence and only one other moment of gore, we are treated to a highly visceral and brutal display of Sam Neill getting, quite literally, ripped to pieces, and then a similar treatment with all the soldiers in the lobby, leaving me with little more than a sickly feeling in my stomach, and nagging disappointment in my head. Oh yeah, and I really didn't like Ethan Hawke's brother.

Daybreakers reminds me a little of Equilibrium; really deep and interesting set-up, with great potential that it ultimately fails to live up to, though Equilibrium had cool action to prevent it becoming boring, while Daybreakers had no such buffer. I was enjoying the first half of the film, I think up until the point where Ethan Hawke meets Willem Dafoe, and then I noticed myself yawning, and wondering when I'd actually give a damn about anything that was going on. I think most of my negative reaction to the film comes from the fact that none of the interesting concepts in the film were explored or advanced properly, making me wonder sadly how bloody good this film could / should have been. objectively though, the film isn't bad, and there's a lot worse stuff of this genre out there.