After having immensely enjoyed 300, V for Vendetta, Sin City and A History of Violence, I am an avowed fan of the adapted-from-a-graphic-novel form of filmaking. The transition from the printed page of the graphic novel to widescreen is an easier one than from novel to film, precisely because of the richness of the visual imagery from which the director has to choose.
I was thus looking forward to David Slade’s 30 Days of Night. Recent vampire movies such as 28 Weeks Later have continued to raise the bar and so I will admit that I entered the theater with high expections. Regretfully, some of those expectations were not realized.
30 Days of Night is an interesting premise. Since there is a prolonged period of night during the winter in Alaska, and since vampires (according to legend) eschew sunlight, wouldn’t it be cool to throw a few vampires in the middle of an Alaskan Winter? The premise is great, but the implementation is not.
Visually the film is interesting. Filled with white, black and gray the story does present an interesting visual palette. The location is isolated, frozen and lonely–which helps to add to the suspense as the vampires attempt to cut off the city from its surroundings prior to their attack. This palate becomes later filled with red as the vampires attack (wasting huge quantities of blood in the process, which seems a bit silly for any kind of “feeding” activity) and later yellows as ice is purged by fire late in the film.
Into this are thrown several human characters that are the weakest part of the movie. Josh Hartnett is at his most limited here, playing a police officer, Eben Oleson. Josh is estranged from his wife, Stella Oleson (played comfortably but not brilliantly by the attractive Melissa George) who is in town ostensibly to do some sort of work on the pipeline, or was it the forest (of which there is very little). The two get stuck together in the Alaskan town of something-or-another (not really key to the plot). Much soap-operaesque dialogue takes place, such as “If you really wan’t to talk with me about our separation. . . .” Yada yada yada.
Anyway. A group of odd-looking vampires with almond eyes and bulging temples descend on the town and start tearing out people’s throats (wasting a HUGE amount of blood in the process). Although visually very aggressive and spectacular with gouts of crimson, this makes no sense from a logical standpoint, as no animal wastes its foodsource in such a manner (imagine the lion stating, “no, I think I will just eat the filet mignon, and throw the rest all over the savanna. . . .”).
So, rather than pulling a few humans aside and discreetly draining their blood, these vampires run all over the city, seemingly intent on killing everyone. They say in some sort of oddly eastern European language that this is done to “prevent anyone from knowing that they (vampires) really exist.”
In the end, the vampire king is killed, the couple is back together again (for a while) and the 4 or 5 remaining people in the villiage are alive. Fade to black.
I give it *1/2 Jessicas out of four, primarily for interesting visuals. Consider renting this if Netflix is out of 28 Weeks Later, which is a better vampire film.
EK
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